


Front Lines

by jemejem



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: 1956 Hungarian Revolution, Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - 1950s, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - War, Antisemitism, Dictator!Riko, Imprisonment, Jewish Character, Jewish Neil Josten, M/M, Multi, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-World War II, Raven!Andrew, Rebellion, Revolution, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:06:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 31,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23243743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jemejem/pseuds/jemejem
Summary: World War 2 ends, and yet nothing changes in Columbia, a small country ensnared by the Moriyama Empire's false pretenses and promises. Neil lost his mother on the Spanish border but finally outran his father by the end of 1945: can he find the peace he so desperately needs in Palmetto, Columbia's main city? Or will a faction by the name of Ravens reduce all the Foxes' efforts to rubble?
Relationships: Allison Reynolds/Renee Walker (All For The Game), Katelyn/Aaron Minyard, Matt Boyd/Danielle "Dan" Wilds, Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard, Nicky Hemmick/Erik Klose
Comments: 94
Kudos: 263
Collections: AFTG Reverse Big Bang 2020





	1. References

**Author's Note:**

> Enormous credit must go to the brilliant artist, @requiemofkings. Their works are stunning. Keep an eye out for them!!! Also, I'd like to thank my beta, @wishbonetea, of which this work would've probably been abandoned without. Bless the both of you!!!

Columbia: Hungary 

Palmetto: Budapest 

Pal: Buda 

Metto: Pest 

The Den River: the Danube river 

Perimeter Square: Deak Ferenc Ter 

Vixen Square: Hero’s Square

Columbian Radio: Magyar Rádió épülete

Perimeter Avenue: Andrassi Utca 

60 Perimeter Avenue (Evermore Headquarters): 60 Andrassi Utca (Arrow Cross Headquarters, now Terror Museum)

Hospital Bunker/Hospital in the Rock (real) 

St Johns Hospital (real) 

Chain Bridge (real)

The Bastion (real)

Easthaven: Leningrad 

Moriya: Moscow

*


	2. Prologue

_ 11th November, 1945 _

Neil’s fingers trembled as he unearthed a cigarette and his box of matches: the brown paper they were wrapped in was sodden, so he threw it aside in favour of tucking the box back into the inner breast pocket of his coat, where it was warm and dry.

He was crouched in the shadows: the cherry of his cigarette was the only light except for the consistent glow of fires as the Allies reclaimed the city.

It had been a long and bloody war. His father had been somewhat of a mastermind, though the Nazis would never have permitted a red-haired Polish man with a Jewish wife to stand on the front lines. This angered Nathan Wesninski, who was dedicated enough to sacrifice his own wife and son for the cause.

Myriam and Nathanael had fled before the soldiers knocked upon the door. His father tried scouring every artifice and nook of Europe for them but when the war was eventually absolved and his cruelty towards fellow humans recognised and duly punished.

He and his mother had crept under Polish barbed wires, hidden on the underside of hay carts in Austria and trekked through the thickets of Yugoslavia. Myriam had taught her son everything she knew, how to speak in German and English and Hebrew. Together they attempted to learn French as they tried to immigrate to England, but his mother was shot on the border of Spain, leaving Neil alone at the age of fourteen.

Nael Yorsten had been one of many names he and his mother had worn in an attempt to hide from their pasts, but now Neil couldn’t afford even a remote association with his Jewish lineage, so he straightened out his syllables and became Neil Josten instead. He moved to Columbia, a small, easterly country, and became a normal citizen, working on city reparations like everyone else.

It was cold, but Neil thought that perhaps the country of Columbia would be safe, with the Evermore tanks scouring the streets for remnants of Nazi occupation. For now, it was alright. He took a shaking puff of his cigarette and tried to remember what the stars looked like, blotting out the cries of ecstasy and victory that masked the grief of millions who had lost everything.

*

_ 16th February, 1946 _

Neil would remember the end of the second world war—and the supposed ‘democracy’ established by the Moriyamas within Columbia—as a misnomer. The Columbians assumed that the Moriyamas were their saving grace, taking them away from the communist regimes of German dictatorships and fascism.

Really, all that happened was that they changed the emblems on their fancy coats.

The Nazis became the Evermore Party, the bridges across the Den river were rebuilt with nationalist flags and children played with bayonets on the streets. They hated Jews just as much as Hitler did, so Neil’s ears and curls and the bridge of his nose would all be scrutinised if he so much as bumped into the wrong man.

He thought he was free from such horrors. He couldn’t even leave Columbia: the immigration procedures and borders were so strict and Neil was so penniless that it was most impossible to consider leaving. He’d probably be shot on sight.

So he got a job. 15, alone and paperless meant the occupations he could successfully apply for were less than ideal, but there was no shortage of work to be done on a city that was practically in shambles. Weeks later, he’d finally fallen into a routine.

He hauled his bag onto his shoulder and high-tailed it to work every morning, reconstructing the famous Chain bridge. It was a dangerous task, but he’d yet to fall into the Den river, with its floating sheets of ice and buried explosives.

It was, perhaps, the workings of a miracle that had Neil working on that bridge. Every morning, he’d walk to the mouth of the broken landmark and watch the ferry-men as they carted people too and fro, manning the shores of both Pal and Metto and ensuring no one was stranded. Half the workers would be sent to the other side of the river to continue their work, whilst Neil would stand and look up wistfully at the collapsed remains of Pal’s castle.

Matthew Boyd was the only man who went out of his way to clap Neil on the shoulder and share a menthol light—rare in a rationed city—before they got to work. Maybe he noticed the way Neil looked at the castle. Maybe he recognised the way Neil kept his flatcap tugged down, so that his curls would cover his ears.

Maybe it was just the way Neil stood.

Whatever it was, it prompted Matthew to slide a piece of paper into Neil’s pocket. It was warm, the ink smudged, the message coded.

_ meet at vixen square. _

*

“That’s what I said!” Allison crowed, leaning forward. She had a large glass of wine in one hand, and Renee Walker’s wrist in the other. The Reynolds woman was truly something else, with a subtle German lilt to her voice that she tried to mask out of paranoia, only slipping when thoroughly sloshed. She wore various rings, one of which was an engagement ring that lacked the presence of any man.

Neil wanted to ask, but suspected it wasn’t his place.

The group was most certainly eccentric, but Neil suspected that those who were alienated by society tended to band together. The bar in which they gathered was a hole in the wall, where they were hardly the strangest things amongst the shadows.

There were seven of them, including Neil, crammed into the slick leather of a dinette and booth. Dan and Matt shared a layered walnut and vanilla slice with one spoon, the same silver as their delicate engagement rings. Their ochre-hued skin was warm in the low-light, Matt’s hair stuffed under a bowler and Dan’s wrapped with an ornate silk scarf. Allison wore something similar to hide her brilliantly blonde locks, though she didn’t make much of an effort.

Renee was intriguing. Neil had seen the cross at her throat very briefly (though he suspected it was purposeful) and thought of Cardinal Mindszenty, who was executed for refusing to let Evermore nationalise the churches. She had ribbons woven through her dark hair to make it look like the strands were many different colours, though she wore a modest collar and had her hands folded over her gloves.

Neil had hardly spared the other two a single word, though one talked animatedly with the others and attempted to drag Neil into conversation. His name was Nicholas Hemmick, and he was bronzed and curly-haired and Neil had thought that Nicky, too, was possibly Jewish till he’d asked Renee when they would next go to the shadow mass, which were sporadic church gatherings whilst religion was abolished.

Aaron Minyard was most definitely German, stoic and unfavourable. He hardly spoke, nor looked at the others, playing with his food. Nicky said that he was training at St John’s, and had worked in the Hospital in the Rock during the Nazi occupation. Neil remembered that place. He’d been sent there when his right ear had an altercation with a bullet.

“Ever been there, Neil?” Nicky inquired, animatedly. “It is the most dreary place.”

Carefully, Neil pulled back his hair and showed his ear, where a good chunk of the shell was missing. It’d narrowly missed his skull.

“Wicked!” Nicky crowed. “Aaron, do you remember him?”

“Do I remember a dirty, blank-faced civilian in the midst of the hundreds of patients I would see each week with the same head wounds?” Aaron grunted. “Yeah, sure.”

Nicky made a face.

“You going to drink?” Matt inquired, tapping the rim of Neil’s pint. When Neil shook his head, Dan put her hand over Matt’s wrist.

“Middle of the week, honey,” she reminded him. He smiled sheepishly at the reprimand and kissed her temple, before inserting appropriate space between them.

“This place seems rather ancient,” Allison said, looking around the small diner. Its brick facades were fading, the wooden sconces worn with time. “It won’t be long before those Neo-Nazis come tearing it down—”

“Evermore,” Nicky supplied. “Though perhaps the ‘rats’ would be more appropriate—“

“Nicholas,” Aaron hissed, eyeing Neil. “Shut up.”

Neil finally understood his hesitation over Neil. “I’m—“  _ Jewish.  _ “—Polish, Aaron. I am not going to betray a revolution, so long as it’s the side that will stop branding me as the enemy.”

“Polish, huh?” Allison rested her head on one hand, looking at him. “I see it, now. Though those curls are something else, aren’t they?”

Neil shrugged uncomfortably.

“It’s not a revolution,” Renee reprimanded. “We cannot possible conceive such thoughts in such treacherous times. But maybe, Neil, you might find a little bit of comfort here. We can be your people, if you’d like us to be.”

“That’s—very nice—“ Neil stammered. “I mean—isn’t it dangerous—?”

“As far as anyone’s concerned,” Nicky said, airily. “My cousin is a well-ranked official with the Evermore militia, and we are all dutiful, loyal public servants.”

“Your cousin is a  _ what—?” _

“Bailey’s tea, anyone?”

They all chorused together, leaving Neil baffled. There wasn’t another moment that he could get a word in edgeways to ask, so he settled into the couch with his tea (herbal and clean) as the conversation flowed freely.

Outside, the snow began to fall.

*

In 1953, Kengo died, and Columbia mourned their leader. The infallible leader. The omniscient, immortalised man who had lifted their country from their razed ruins to its prospering state. Children sung at the commemoration ceremony. Under Neil’s skin his blood boiled. By his elbow, Dan tilted her head knowingly.

_ Not yet,  _ her gaze said.

He simply looked ahead.

*


	3. The Hospital in the Rock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> for @wishbonetea, who loved the twist ;;)

_ 4th of October, 1956 _

There were guards posted at both ends of every bridge across the Den, and the Chain Bridge was no exception. Neil would observe from afar as the eight men ferried through automobiles and carts, searching every pedestrian as they filtered past the lion monuments, their ferocious snarls missing a few teeth and worn by the gritty rain.

Neil wouldn’t dare cross a bridge, not in a climate like this. Each of the soldiers displayed their pretty Evermore bandanas, tied around their left biceps in an ugly demonstration of loyalty. Neil, like everyone who wanted to walk in broad daylight without being accused of betrayal, wore his Evermore pin on the lapel of his coat.

Inside his collar, however, was the small diamond pin that Renee had fashioned out of old religious paraphernalia she had rescued from the ‘purgings’. It was shaped almost like a fox’s head, and  _ róka  _ was inscribed in its face. Each of the ‘Foxes’ had one, which they kept on their person at all times. It was important to flash when meeting with potentials or allies under the mask of night, when trust was a coveted gift, not freely given or expressed.

St Stephen’s bells chimed six times for six o’clock, so Neil stood up from the old bench and shoved his hands into his pockets, crossing the grass of the small green courtyard. He darted through the traffic as he journeyed to the granite staircase that lead down to the riverbank.

The Den river was fraught with chunks of ice and old boats in the dead of winter. It was still only mid-November, so the journey from Metto to Pal was relatively safe. Docked under the bridge’s pylons was Matt, in a canoe, grinning and waving Neil over from behind a scarf he kept wrapped around the lower half of his face.

They’d worked on the reconstruction of the Chain bridge together almost seven years ago. That was when Matt had invited Neil along for dinner, and history had simply unfolded from then onwards. Neil would forever be only loyal to himself and Matt had a wife, but they still found common ground. His mother would be furious at him for letting himself fall into camaraderie with someone who wasn’t family. Neil ignored the whisperings of her ghost and focused on the warm nights and blueprints for rebellion he and Matt had worked on for years together instead.

Neil clambered into the canoe and took an oar from Matt’s grip, settling beside him.

“Long time, no see, brother.” Matt grinned, jostling his shoulder. Neil simply nodded, using his oar to push off from the bank. He’d been on Metto for two months, whilst the rest of the Foxes stayed on Pal, building up supplies and alliances as Neil scouted for information and weaknesses.

“How is Dan?”

“Splendid as usual,” he acknowledged. “But antsy. Like you, no?”

Neil made a derisive noise and began rowing. Matt snorted and joined him.

“And the demonstration,” Matt said. “It’s really gathering momentum. Of course we don’t want anything violent—we all have had enough after 1945, haven’t we?—but it’ll be good to show face. Not literally show face, of course, because we don’t want to be personally victimised, but it’s important to stand in solidarity for what we believe in! Can you believe we’ve known each other for almost seven years, Neil? How far we’ve come…”

Neil let him talk. It was soothing to talk to someone he’d known for so long.

“She wants to talk to you about the Ravens,” he continued, five minutes later. They were almost half way across, but Neil stilled despite the strong current. He looked at Matt, whose breath clouding in front of his face and gaze as grave as he’d ever seen it. Matt cleared his throat and readjusted his gloves before continuing to row. “If it’s true, such a division could be detrimental to our purpose. We’re equipped to deal with brainwashed meatheads. Not intelligence operations. Rumour has it that the Ravens are the most dangerous men that Evermore has to offer.”

“I already know this. I  _ told  _ you all this.”

“I know,” Matt huffed. “I just—Dan will explain.”

Neil heard the resignation in Matt’s tone and grasped his oar once more, settling back into rhythm. They were a little delayed by the time they docked, needing the shift-change to come up from under the bridge unnoticed. When they were safely away from the soldier's presence, Neil lit up two cigarettes and passed one to Matt. They dawdled as they walked, trying not to look like they were men with ulterior motives.

It was another half hour till they arrived at the bunker, which was assumed to be out of use and empty. They entered through the smaller ambulance entrance, shedding their coats and scarves in the warmth.

Wymack and Dan were there to greet Neil’s arrival, Wymack with his gruff frown and crossed arms, and Dan with a thin-lipped smile and an open embrace. Neil let Dan hug him, briefly, before nodding at Wymack and offering the older man his cigarette. Neil didn’t really smoke, letting the filter burn down till it singed his lips. Wymack tucked the light between his stoic frown and set off with a brisk pace, leading them down into the depths of the bunker.

“We missed you,” Dan insisted, letting her fingers intertwine with Matt’s as they followed Wymack down the narrow corridor. Everything was smooth stone, with green piping and rusted ventilation systems dotting the dimly lit tunnels. The hospital had been constructed during the war with the capacity for about 60 patients, but ended up treating upwards of 250 men at any one time. Neil had been in the bunker for the bullet wound in the shell of his ear and only stuck around for a few nights, incapable of tolerating the smell and constant groaning and screams of agony.

The Foxes had done good work in expanding the bunker, updating the ventilation system and creating a new entrance with streamline protocols for an atomic meltdown. Neil walked past the cubicles where radioactive hair would be shaven off and destroyed, clothes too, and the showers where skin would be scrubbed raw and pink. Renee had to be behind the pastel green tiles. It was too close to the sickly shade of a sick man’s skin, but nicer than the concrete slathering across most of the walls.

Everyone was waiting for him in the foyer. Neil looked around the table and saw familiar faces—Nicky, Renee, Abby, Betsy, Allison, Robin, Jack, Sheena, Brian, Marissa—but also carefully noted the absentees, Aaron, his wife Katelyn, and Seth. Wymack immediately marched to his leather-backed chair at the head of the table as Matt settled by Renee, tugging off his second scarf and gloves.

Neil knew what they were looking at. The last time they had seen him, he had fuller cheeks and clothes that weren’t worn thin. Now he had circles under his eyes and bruises across his knuckles. His job wasn’t easy, nor safe, and no one—not even Jack, who hated Neil’s guts—tried to contest or trivialise his efforts.

“Welcome back, Neil,” Abby said, warmly, standing up to give him a gentle hug. “We’re so glad you’re here. There’s so much to prepare for, with the demonstration coming soon.”

“You look like the last leaf on a birch,” Allison remarked. Neil snorted, rubbing his cheek with the back of his hand. Renee admonished her lover with a hand on Allison’s shoulder, to which Allison dismissed. She and Neil had built a small and strange relationship out of circumstance, when Allison had attended a family gathering with Neil by her side three years ago.

“You’ve kept the place well,” Neil allowed. Nicky beamed, leaning back in his chair.

“Now’s not the time,” Dan insisted. “We can exchange pleasantries later, alright? There’s a lot of information that we need to iron out and slot into the puzzle, and the protest is in just over two weeks. I’ve kept all of Neil’s correspondence to myself whilst Wymack and I have attempted to sort through the grit, but it’s happening. We need to act.”

Everyone was sitting upright. Dan had never been so forward: She was a woman of promise, so they all knew she’d initiate the rebellion they’d all hoped for, but she’d also insisted on patience. This was a first.

Even Neil, who probably knew the most and was beyond tired, was alert.

“Neil,” she asked, lowly. “What do you know about the Ravens?”

Neil grit his teeth, looking down at his spindly fingers. “They’re a special division of Evermore, designed to extract information and efficiently punish any offenders that they deem as deviants. They have come from Moriyama leagues, most likely in response to civil unrest here in Palmetto. I know two men who have disappeared into Evermore headquarters, who haven’t come out the other end. I don’t know much else, other than that we need to be careful.”

That was a lie, but it was a lie Neil had to maintain. Kevin Day had been young and spritely in youth organisations with his adopted brother, Riko Moriyama, ever since Neil could remember. His father had once pinched his nose and cursed Neil for his Jewish heritage: if he’d just married a Christian woman, Neil would’ve been allowed to play with Kevin and Riko and become the little nationalist his father had always wanted.

He and Kevin had met once. A brief, twenty minute exposé that’d lead to his discovering Neil’s father was a man with a cruel sleight of hand, and his son was somehow Jewish but still alive and well. As well as anyone under Wesninski’s roof could be, anyway.

“Wymack and I figured out who the Ravens are.” Dan said, snapping him out of his reverie. 

His stomach knotted unto itself.  _ Shit _ . 

“Riko Moriyama, their leader. Son of Kengo himself. Just as much of an asshole. His adoptive brothers, Kevin Day, whose mother was killed, and Jean Moreau, whose mother sold him. Thea Muldani, who is  _ not  _ to be underestimated: She was trained for assassination in the north and may be the most skilled out of the five of them.”

“Five,” Renee hedged. “Who’s the last one?”

Wymack cut over Dan, looking directly at Nicky. “He has returned from Easthaven after 5 years, when he was told that rebel forces killed his cousin and brother. I would consider him as the most volatile of them all, and most certainly the one with the most powerful motivations.”

“No,” Nicky whispered, horrified. “You’re not saying—”

“Yes.” Dan said, gravely. “Andrew Minyard has abdicated from his connections to his family, and the revolution. He’s a part of the Raven division, and he’s hellbent on killing every one of us.”

*

Neil settled onto his shelf bunk, the familiarity of the harrowingly green emergency lamp illuminating the room with a ghastly glow. He’d spent months—years, really—sleeping like this, on a shelf nailed to the wall with an old feather down mattress pinned to the board. Matt had slept beneath him for so long, but now that he and Dan had married, Wymack had permitted them to invest in a double mattress, which was positioned in another room.

Neil’s roommate was seemingly replaced with Nicky, though he was conspicuously absent. Neil figured he wouldn’t want to sleep when he’d just found out that his cousin was alive and hunting the rebel forces under the false pretence that Nicky and Aaron were dead.

Nicky himself was torn between contacting his cousin—the more reasonable choice—and just laying low, sending Aaron a letter to come back to the bunker from St John’s hospital, avoiding Andrew all together. Why they wouldn’t seek out the opportunity to bring Andrew back onto their side was beyond Neil. Was he truly too volatile to reconcile with?

The door creaked open and Neil still jolted, even though he wasn’t anywhere near asleep. Nicky’s lithe figure appeared, a backlit shadow, with a sniff and a yawn.

“Sorry, Neil,” he whispered. “Did I wake you?”

“No,” Neil sat up. “I was wondering, actually. Why won’t you just send Andrew a letter?”

Nicky closed the door behind him and lit the gas lamp on the only piece of furniture in their little room other than the old wardrobe, the bedside table. His gaze was harrowing as he looked at his hands. Neil realised he was looking at a picture, so he leaned over the edge of his bunk to look.

The photograph was of someone who looked incredibly similar to Aaron, of whom Neil was very familiar with. The ashen portrait showed someone who was far more devoid of emotion than his brother, hair swept back rather than forward, and a stiff coat keeping his shoulders back. He wasn’t looking at the camera either, instead to something off in the distance. It made him seem rather removed.

“Andrew is…” Nicky bit his lip, fingertips drifting across the creased surface of the photo. “Calculative and controlled. He took the position in Easthaven to divert the attention away from me and Erik. You know, my partner.” Neil nodded and Nicky sighed. “It was selfless—he  _ is  _ very selfless, but it’s out of his need to fulfil his promise of protection over us, not out of goodness. Someone must have figured him out and used it to exploit him. A letter wouldn’t work. Even seeing us wouldn’t work. He wouldn’t come back here unless it was drastic, and so if he truly believes we are dead, he must trust the opinion of whoever told him so. There’s no quick fix for that.”

“So you’re just meant to avoid him?”

“We all have to avoid him,” Nicky warned. “If he sees your  _ róka _ pin, he’ll have you hung from the closest tree without a qualm. He’s—intense.”

“You don’t say,” Neil remarked.

“Family means a lot to him,” Nicky insisted. “You understand.”

Neil didn’t. His only family was a man who tried to sacrifice his wife and child to further his military ranking, and a mother who couldn’t live without looking over her shoulder. He just nodded and settled down into his bunk.

“I’m sure that Dan will have an idea,” Nicky said unhelpfully. “We’ll work around Andrew. The revolution can’t stop just for family dramatics, can it? Besides, we should focus on the protest instead. He won’t find us if the crowd is big enough.” His chuckle was dry. Neil mumbled assent and curled onto his side, facing the wall, as was habit.

A war couldn’t be stopped over personal problems, but there were never any wars without them, either. Neil had never met Andrew, never risked the dangers that were associated with any member of Evermore and their various divisions, but perhaps he could still be the key.

Perhaps he could initiate their fight to freedom. Neil’s lips curled around his name— _ Andrew— _ and it felt solid: it felt right.

All Neil needed to do was find the right lock he fit into, and then freedom would be merely a battle away.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> eheheheheeh
> 
> I hope yall r liking it so far!! I'm posting the next two chapters either tomorrow or the day after!!!!


	4. The Protest

_ 23rd of October, 1956 _

It was dusk when they arrived, scarves over faces and hands tucked into gloves, in Perimeter square. There were plenty of people despite the ghastly hour, milling around silently. There was a grave atmosphere in the square: everyone knew what was at risk.

It was the first demonstration against Evermore, and it was proving more popular than Wymack and his Foxes could have ever hoped. Most were students, university attendees: they were young and opinionated and had come in groups of three or four to voice their thoughts.

_ It’s October 23rd,  _ Neil thought, hands shoved into his pockets.  _ 1956\. You are Neil Josten, 26 and Polish. You are participating in a demonstration for democracy. _

His mother would beat him black and blue for sticking his neck out like this. Even when the risk of violent backlash was relatively low. Even when Neil wasn’t a real person, and he now had enough money to slip through the cracks. He’d let himself become so intertwined with the Foxes that abandoning them and their schemes was just—unthinkable. At least, not now. When it was all over he’d definitely skip town—he couldn’t afford anyone connecting him back to Nathan Wesninski, or Myriam Hatford—but for now he could enjoy the electricity in the air, the cold draft that curled around their ankles.

“There’s so many of us!” Dan whispered from behind a woollen neck warmer, pulled over her nose. Her headscarf was pulled down far enough to keep most of her face covered. Neil wore his flat-cap and kept his coat buttoned all the way up. “Isn’t this brilliant? They can’t ignore us now.”

“We started this,” Matt said enthusiastically. “You did. You and Wymack. You should be so proud, baby.”

Nearby, Allison made a scathing noise. Renee smothered the sound with a discreet kiss, hidden by the darkness of twilight. Neil smiled down at his feet.

“There he is,” Dan said, holding up her hand to wave Wymack over. He brought Abby and Bee in tow, as well as a few of the younglings. Just beyond them was Nicky, towing Aaron and an unfamiliar along, and even further back was Seth. He still towered over Neil with his scowl and furrowed brow. Neil hadn’t met Seth for a while when he’d first got in with the Foxes, seeing as he was a part of the Columbian militia and was deployed to help with civil unrest in Germany. Apparently he and Allison had been engaged, his military status attractive to Allison’s diplomat parents. It hadn’t worked out for the best, but Seth was still around every few months or so.

He was a bit of an asshole. Neil didn’t have much to say to or about him: he was much closer to Matt. As it was, Seth immediately crossed to Matt and gave him a solid thud on the shoulder, before kissing Allison, Renee and Dan across both cheeks. All he spared on Neil was a nod, before looking silently to the north end of the square.

All the Foxes were gathered at the south end, ready to lead the crowd down Perimeter avenue, past Evermore’s headquarters to the radio centre to request an announcement—their plea for freedom. It was all planned out ahead of time: Dan had even posted to the police, advising a clearing of the street so that no pedestrians would be hurt or vehicles damaged.

Neil watched, bouncing on the balls of his feet, as Columbian flags were strapped to their mounts and raised up: it was three simple stripes, orange bordered with white, but in the centre sat the Evermore crest. Others held the  _ róka  _ crest, the fox-shape that Renee had designed so long ago, on signs that read  _ the new crest of Palmetto.  _ Old shipping crates were torn up for signs that said  _ free us from occupation  _ and  _ stop evermore oppression.  _ All Neil could see were angry eyes from under scarves and hats.

Dan took his arm, linking them together, and Allison slung her arm around his shoulders. Wymack ruffled his hair as he passed, heading towards the front to initiate the march as soon as the bells chimed for six o’clock.

They rung, clear as day, as the sun dipped under the horizon, and the thousands of students began their march.

It was all a bit hazy for Neil, who chanted alongside his peers, passed around candles and signs and banners. A boy was playing the trumpet as he walked, a patriotic tune that others cheered along with. Some were just yelling  _ róka, róka,  _ over and over, till the word sounded like nothing but a jumble of letters. Neil let himself  _ live. _

They journeyed to parliament house, where they all eagerly listened to Wymack’s proclamations of freedom: The numbers increased to the thousands and the Foxes were  _ exuberant. _ Dan dragged Neil up onto the dais with Wymack as the crowd chanted the lines of a censored poem, stamping their feet.

All went quiet when the doors of parliament house opened, ready to deliver a verdict.

A guard appeared at the gates, fingers white as he leaned closer to garner their attention. Dan’s fist curled tighter as the guard spoke to her, guttural and harsh. She turned around immediately and cried: “They refuse! Evermore refuses to free us!”

All Neil could say was that havoc ensued. Outrage rippled over the crowd. The 30ft tall bronze-casted statue of Kengo was hacked at as dozens attempted to pull it down. Nicky cackled as he took a knife to the centre of his Columbian flag and cut out the Evermore crest, many quickly following suit.

“The radio station!” Dan yelled over the cacophony, grabbing Matt’s hand. “We still need to voice ourselves to the world, or it’ll be hushed over by tomorrow!”

Neil nodded fervently, almost numbed by the energy of the crowd. Whilst many stayed to topple down the statue, a decent amount were on the Foxes’ heels as they careened towards the radio station. Columbian Radio had been established in 1925, only thirty-odd years ago, and would hopefully concede to Dan’s wishes. She wanted a broadcast so badly: it would alert those around Columbia of their wishes, the state of their country, maybe even catch the attention of the West. It was vital for their success. External political pressure was probably the only way to get the Evermore Party to concede.

It was only five minutes to the station if you ran: wrangling so many put it upwards of ten minutes. By the time Neil and Dan had gathered themselves, Seth, Renee, Allison and Matt by their sides, thousands were filling the street.

“Apparently it’s close to hundreds of thousands!” Matt crowed. “They’ve knocked down the statue of Kengo, and put flags in his boots!”

Dan was grinning victoriously, marching towards the radio station. They rounded to the front gates, which were propped open—

And skidded to a stop at the presence of armed soldiers. Armed to the  _ teeth.  _ Guns strung across their backs and knives strapped to their biceps, rows of ammunition across their chests. Neil immediately flinched back slightly, remembering the guards at Plaszow.

_ If you misbehave,  _ his father had whispered,  _ I’ll let them take you away. _

“Take another step forward and you will not appreciate the consequences,” came a voice, shadowed by the gate’s archway. The streetlamp cast an eerie glow across the three soldiers that stood between Dan and Neil’s entrance to the radio station. Above them, the terraces were lined with more men, casting elongated shadows across the ground in the moonlight.

It was a clear night.

“We want to enter the radio station,” Dan said. “You can escort me. I will represent the people.”

The man stepped out further. He was Japanese, with a golden pin that sparkled on his breast pocket. Neil shuddered: it was a Raven. “Will you, now?”

Dan rose up her chin. “We are the people of Columbia and we wish to be heard.”

The man barked out a laugh. It felt like grease on Neil’s skin. “I’m quite sure the last thing the people want is some blackened whore. Am I wrong?”

Matt bristled and others scowled: Dan’s hand flew out to catch his wrist and stop him from doing anything drastic. Renee stepped slightly in front of both Nicky and Seth before they could break through.

“The state of you all is a testament to the worth of your politics,” he said. “You come here, demanding entrance: your  _ people  _ have torn down the timeless statue of Kengo, retaliating with aggressive vandalism to our simple requests that you disband and quit causing the city disruption. There is no reason for you all to have such unfathomable anger towards the Evermore Party.”

“It’s just a travesty,” the man continued. “You look over the reparation and economic prosperity and safe streets but you want a voice. How pathetic.”

“Economic prosperity for who?” Neil demanded, taking a step closer. “Safe streets for  _ who?  _ You’re talking to us with loaded guns whilst all we have are empty hands. We have  _ nothing  _ because of your empty promises, your reparations that take money from your citizens, your economic prosperity that goes only to the wealthy, the safe streets that are safe for  _ you. _ ”

“Neil,” Dan managed, strained.

“All we want is a broadcast of our statement,” Neil continued. Everyone behind him was silent. “All we want is certainty that we won’t be shot dead for not conforming to an impossible standard. So please— _ please— _ move your pious, self-serving ass out of the way and leave us alone.”

Neil thought that perhaps he could hear someone’s watch ticking.

The man sauntered forward: in the light, Neil could see the  _ 一 (ichi)  _ tattooed across his cheekbone, the hungering gaze, the malicious grin that’d turned to a snarl. They were nose to nose.

He cocked his head. “I said you’d regret it if you took another step, didn’t I? Wrists.”

Neil grit his teeth, hands curled into fists by his sides.

“I asked you for your  _ wrists,  _ brat.”

Shackles were clamped over his forearms, clamping the coat tight to his skin. Dan made a horrible noise, reaching out: Matt tugged her back, breathing heavily through his nose. Murmurings of confusion rippled through the crowd.

“Where are you taking him?” Allison demanded. “Why is he being detained?”

“He disrespected and disobeyed a senior officer,” the man said.

“You have no right to do this,” Renee said calmly. “He has done nothing wrong.”

“I am General Riko Moriyama,” he announced, loud and proud. There was a collective inhale of horror. “So yes, ma’am, I have every right. Besides—” he reached into the pocket of Neil’s jacket and pulled out his revolver. His eyes were black as he looked down at Neil, finger tilting up Neil’s chin. “Carrying a weapon without permit or purpose? That brands you as a hostile. Move it.”

Neil let himself look over his shoulder once: his Foxes were grasping onto one another in horror as he was dragged past the fence and into the radio station’s courtyard, wrists weighed down. There was already a twinge in his neck from the weight.

“You can’t do this!” someone yelled. Around them were cheers of agreement.

“Give him back!”

“He’s done nothing wrong, we’re allowed to carry non-automatic firearms!”

It built quickly, too quickly for Neil to comprehend, the fact that all these strangers were cheering for his liberation, coming to his defence—

“You fucking pricks!” Seth crowed, piggybacked by Matt and waving a Columbian flag with the Evermore crest cut out. “We will prevail! We will prevail! We will—”

Crack. Splat. Scream.

Whoever had fired had been close enough to Neil that his ear was left ringing. Disoriented and panicked, he squeezed his eyes closed and forced himself not to regress to his terrified, 14-year-old self, the bullet hole in his ear and the never-ending sieges, his mother’s death, dragging her corpse over a fire, gunpowder and gasoline.  _ It is the 23rd of October, 1956. I am Neil Josten. I am 26. I am Polish, I am a Fox, I am Jewish my mother’s name was Myriam I am on the run I am Neil Josten I am Neil Josten I am Neil Josten— _

“Move it,” snapped someone unfamiliar, the butt of a gun digging into the base of Neil’s spine. Neil looked over his shoulder and stumbled.

“ _ Aaron?” _

The man’s gaze hardened. “How do you—never fucking mind. I said  _ move  _ it.”

“You look so much like him,” Neil wondered, still dazed. Gunfire and tear gas rained down on the crowd, just beyond the fence. “You’re Andrew. Nicky showed me a photo—”

He should have kept his mouth shut, if it meant he would’ve been able to ensure that his Foxes were alive, that no one in the crowd was dead, that anyone who was injured could be taken back to the hospital in the rock. He should’ve been there for his allies, his fellow revolutionaries.

Instead, he gazed into hazel eyes as the barrel of Andrew Minyard’s gun swung around, whacking him at the back of his neck. His shackled wrists reached out to soften his fall, but he was already blacked out by the time he hit the floor.

Andrew’s cold, golden stare was the last thing he remembered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :000


	5. Evermore Headquarters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heed the warnings in this one :[

His eyes peeled open slowly, crusted shut like they had been sealed with glue. In an attempt to scrub his eyes, he realised his hands were locked behind his back.

_ Oh, fuck,  _ Neil thought.

He was in a dark cellar. It was cold, miserably cold, and the only source of light was a feeble candle mounted by the door. There was a foul odour emanating from  _ something,  _ but he could hardly see his own knees, let alone whatever else was in the room with him.

Arched ceilings, cobbled floors, shackles bolted to the floor. Neil counted three, perhaps four, bodies around him and wasn’t sure whether or not they were alive. He was too parched to ask.

At least he was still fully clothed. That made the freezing stone beneath him more tolerable, and concealed his scars and markings from judgement. He’d probably have to change at some point, but for now, he nestled further into the oversized coat Nicky had bought him a long while ago. It brought little comfort, now that it smelled like blood and sweat and gunpowder.

“Red-head,” someone hissed from the corner. “Play dead. They’ll leave you here if you do.”

Neil opened his mouth to reply, just as the oaken door swung open. There stood Neil’s captor in all his five-foot glory, blank-faced with his thumb hooked onto his belt. A holster sat at his hip, but Neil was more concerned with the obvious knife sheaths hidden at his forearms.

For a moment Neil just looked, observing the slight differences between this man and his brother, of whom Neil had known for years. Andrew had a scar cutting across his bottom lip, a thin white line, and similar markings on his hands and neck. Aaron hadn’t ever been on the front line of a battlefield: Andrew clearly had.

“You’re awake,” he acknowledged, crossing over to where Neil was locked up. He crouched in front of Neil, close enough for Neil to head-butt him, but where would he go? He had no clue where he was or how to escape, and besides, his hands were still chained to the cobblestone. The keys rattled as Neil was unlocked, but were quickly substituted with a glistening knife when Neil was freed.

Neil bit the tip of his tongue and stood, following Andrew’s directions as he put his hands behind his back and let Andrew re-chain him.

“Not so much tongue now, hm?” the man remarked. He shoved Neil’s shoulder. “Walk.”

Neil could snark his captor another day: he spent the few moments of freedom canvasing his location. There was a long corridor that lead to a dead end, the doorways presumably cells. A hallway perpendicular went around a corner to somewhere Neil couldn’t see, but assumed would be some form of exit, if the number of guards coming in and out was anything to go by. Neil was carted off to the right, into a small, enclosed chamber with a row of showers and storage.

Neil grit his teeth as Andrew unlocked him.

“Shower, dress,” the man said with a lazy flick of his hand. He took his position atop a stool and spun the knife around his fingers.

Oddly enough, the Raven tilted himself away, like he would avoid looking at Neil whilst he showered. Humiliation was often the first step in psychological torture: perhaps they preferred to keep things at physical torture instead.

Neil ducked his head and shuffled towards the tiled wall. There were dried splatters of blood staining the already rusted grout. He toed off his shoes and undid the buttons of his coat slowly, refusing to look over his shoulder.

“I don’t have all day,” Andrew remarked, glancing over his shoulder. From his pocket he brought out a pack of cigarettes and shook out his lighter. Neil’s throat went dry.

Piece by piece, he took off his clothes: the socks on his feet, the coat, the buttoned jumper Renee knitted him, the cotton shirt beneath it, his trousers. Carefully, he took the  _ róka  _ pin and hid it in his fist. All that was left were his wifebeater and under-shorts. He was already shivering.

Andrew was giving him his full, undivided attention. It was no wonder: Neil had an enormous scar from a flatiron, just a triangular dent on his shoulder. Also noticeable was the tattoo, the identification number Nathan had tattooed into his wife and son the day before they were meant to be collected for interment.

Neil had never let anyone see it. The light knife cuts his mother had provided weren’t enough to obscure the tattoo itself.

Andrew looked to the tattoo, the scars across Neil’s shoulders and upper arms, and narrowed his eyes.

“You are Jewish?” He leaned closer, leaning his elbows on his knees to look up at Neil. “Impossible. You shouldn’t be alive.”

“What, you need to see my dick as well?” Neil snapped, tugging the singlet over his head and throwing it to the ground. It showed the rest of his scars in all their hideous glory.

Andrew made a scathing noise, disgusted by the landscape of Neil’s skin. “Who did that to you?”

“Like you care.”

“Try me.”

Neil glanced over his shoulder. “My father. Nazis. Barbed wire. Take your pick.”

“Did you go to a camp?”

“Almost,” Neil murmured, remembering his mother ushering him out of his bedroom in the middle of the night as cars pulled into the driveway. “Did you serve at one?”

“Too young.” Andrew leaned back, cigarette tucked into the corner of his mouth. “Lived here in Palmetto, not in Germany.”

“Of course, you just didn’t have the opportunity. Not because it was facilitating the genocide of six million innocent people.”

“I can’t say certain things out loud. You’d know that better than anyone.”

Neil turned away. “Why are you talking to me, then? Surely that’s forbidden too.”

“Hurry up and shower,” he snapped, slumping against the wall and taking a long drag of his cigarette. Neil turned back around and shed the boxers, yanking on the tap and stepping into the spray. The water hit his skin like little needle pricks, searing across his chest, even through the numbed patches of scars. His whole body was trembling as he scrubbed every inch of his body: sanitisation was what got people in these sorts of places half the time, so if this was his only chance to be clean, he’d bloody take it.

There was no way to towel off the icy water: he glanced to Andrew, who was staring sullenly at the door rather than him, and thus shuffled over to a small closet and tugged out the baggy canvas jumpsuit.

It provided almost no warmth for Neil as he pulled it over his feet and buttoned it up at the front. There were no sleeves, and he had to roll the hem of the trousers up to accommodate his short height, the belt enormous in comparison to his starved waist. His tattoo and scars were on full show.

Hidden by the belt loop, he pinned his golden fox, safe and sound. He would not lose the one thing that mattered. He couldn’t bear the thought of it.

By the time he was ready Andrew had already kicked his old clothes over to the corner, where an incineration hatch remained. Neil gulped, curling his hands into fists as he said goodbye to Nicky’s lovely coat and Renee’s soft knitted sweater.

Andrew locked his hands behind his back again, yanking on Neil’s hair to pull his head upright. “Watch where you’re going. The ceilings are low.”

“Somehow I don’t think that’s a problem,” Neil muttered, shoulders curled inwards. He wished he could cross his arms and cover the faded tattoo: the shackles meant that he had no choice but to bare the blatant tagging of his faith.

He was marched out of the odd locker room and down the corridor he’d recognised before, indeed lined with various cells. The doors were all various sizes, and morose, gaunt-faced prisoners gazed out of the tiny windows in the iron doors. Neil tripped over a ditch and almost skidded to the floor if it weren’t for Andrew’s fist, curled in the back of his jumpsuit and yanking him upright.

“I told you to watch yourself,” he snapped.

“You only mentioned the ceilings,” Neil retorted. He received a shove to his lower back in response.

Andrew led him to what could only be the interrogation room: A large table and two chairs were positioned in its centre: Riko Moriyama sat upon his ugly throne, canvased with leather and ornately carved. Neil’s chair was an iron stool.

“Sit.” Riko demanded, immediately eyeing the numbers scrawled on Neil’s arm. Neil almost stumbled into the chair when Andrew pushed him. When he sat down, Riko said, “Bow to me.”

Neil’s lips twitched. “Why should I do that?”

Thick fingers on the back of his neck shoved his head between his knees, quick enough to snap his head back and cause a twinge of pain in his neck. Neil grit his teeth, focusing on keeping the tattoo angled away from Riko’s line of sight.

“You’ll find that you don’t get much of a choice,” Riko said, calmly. “You’ve been branded as a traitor to the Evermore Party. Your actions had consequences too vast for your simple mind. Do you have any idea what your insubordination has caused?”

Neil looked up at Riko from between his knees. The only light in the room was a candelabra on the desk, and an old lightbulb on the ceiling.

Riko stood up from his fancy chair. “Riots, everywhere. We can’t control our own people. Fires and gunfights and injured civilians. It’s simply humiliating.”

Neil’s mouth twisted into a vicious grin. “The righteous will prevail. The people always prevail.”

“Don’t sound so sure,” Riko retorted loftily, leaning onto the desk. “Evermore is stronger than it has ever been before. When we overcome this minor setback, we will be insurmountable.”

Neil ground his teeth together, fingers curled into fists.

“I trust you will take care of his insubordination, Minyard.” Riko announced calmly, moving around the table. “I must subdue the situation above ground. The basement is left in your charge.”

“Godspeed,” Andrew echoed, nodding his head. “Evermore everlasting.”

Riko marched out without another word, nor glance, towards Neil. He assumed this special treatment was for his stunt outside the radio station, rather than Neil’s true identity. In a place like this, good news was sparing, so Neil clung onto it desperately. He wanted to remain as Neil Josten. He didn’t want his father dredged into this, even if the man was long dead.

“On your feet,” Andrew commanded. “I’ll take you to your cell.”

*

Neil, within an hour of awaking in that dank introductory room, was already sick of the moist stone surfaces, the blanket of cold air that was stale with human excrement and misery. Screams echoed too well, though his flinches grew less pronounced the more used to the noise he got.

They’d passed cells at full capacity, Andrew leading Neil all the way to the end. There seemed to be only two figures in the particular room he was shoved into, dark and cold and unassuming.

“Don’t get too comfortable,” Andrew suggested, slamming the door shut behind Neil and locking it shut with a definitive scrape. Neil looked back over his shoulder at his cellmates, stomach twisted into knots.

The first was a young man, probably Neil’s age, maybe a little older. His eyes had a sparkle-like quality, despite the limited amount of light. His skin would have probably been a richer, more caramel-like tone, but in the shadows it’d regressed to its sickly pale state. Two of his perfect teeth had fallen out, and a bruise on his cheekbone was just beginning to yellow around the edges. Patches of his hair were torn out and replaced by oozing scabs.

“You must’ve screwed up real bad to get down here,” he joked. “It’s reserved only for the worst of us.”

Neil only stared.

The man held out his hand. “I’m Jeremy Knox. I was a captain in the rankings of the Trojans. Till they captured me, obviously.”

“The Trojans,” Neil echoed, taking his hand and shaking it. “I didn’t think they were involved anywhere close to here. Not since the war.”

Jeremy shrugged. “Wrong place, wrong time.”

It seemed wrong to be so chipper in a literal torture basement but Neil made no comment, turning to the collapsed heap in the corner.

“Don’t mind him,” Jeremy said gently. “He’s only got a few days left. He’s very ill: I’ve been trying to give him rations of my food, but they hardly give us anything, and they’ve been starving him for weeks.”

“Who is he?”

Slowly, the man rose up his head. His forehead shon with sweat, skin yellow with jaundice and eyes sunken in. Blood from hacked lungs gave his lips some colour, whilst sores littered his lifeless skin. Despite the horrific disfigurement, it’d be impossible to miss the dark eyes, the arch of his brows.

Kengo Moriyama’s own brother was sitting in a basement, entrapped by his nephew and damned to die of starvation. Neil could hardly believe what he was witnessing. He and Kengo were so similar, appearance wise. It was like he was looking at a withered version of the great leader himself.

“Yes,” Jeremy agreed, interpreting Neil’s mildly horrified expression. “That is Tetsuji Moriyama, in the flesh.”

Neil kept back against the furthest wall and slid to the ground, landing in a crumpled heap. It was baffling to see Kengo Moriyama’s brother in this state when his brother was the embodiment of fear and war mongering. He had allied with the Germans at first, but changed affiliations towards the conclusion of the war. Moriyama armies had been of utmost help in liberating war-torn states, but that had just been the first step in occupying said countries and building a brand new regime.

“I know you,” the man croaked, perusing Neil’s figure with a soulless gaze.

“You don’t,” Neil managed, curling himself into a ball and making sure his tattoo was concealed before bowing his head and closing his eyes.

*

“Food,” Jeremy said softly, jostling Neil’s shoulder. Neil jerked awake immediately, amazed he’d fallen asleep and a little dizzy. The dizziness cleared after a few moments, so he finally accepted the tray from a random soldier via the little hatch in the doorway.

Murmurings from the corner of the cell attracted his attention: he watched as Jeremy spooned sodden bread into the Moriyama man’s mouth, hardly sparing any for himself.

Neil closed his eyes. Tetsuji had stood by and watched his brother support the mass eradication of Neil’s own people. There was no doubt he supported it, too. How could Neil conceivably forgive him for what happened? His mother was dead because of the exterminations and the anti-semitism that Neil just couldn’t seem to escape.

Neil didn’t know what kind of man Knox was, but if he was a Trojan, he was supposed to be Neil’s ally. The sight of him sparing food on Tetsuji was disturbing enough to Neil that he crossed the cell and sat in front of Tetsuji.

For a long while, he looked. He looked, and looked, and looked.

“I don’t suppose you’ll spare me your milk,” the old man croaked.

Neil took it off his tray and passed it over. It was less than a mouthful, probably barely even half. Tetsuji grasped it greedily, hands shaking as he swallowed it down. A few stray droplets leaked on the cracked leather of his lips: when he gave the cup back, Neil took it and put it aside.

“You supported the murder of my people,” Neil murmured. “Give me a good reason not to crack your skull open on the wall behind you.”

“I had no interest in war, or politics, or my brother’s antics,” Tetsuji said, voice clearer after a drink. “Kengo was always extreme. Just like his sons are extreme. You are a Jew, then?” Tetsuji observed Neil’s slight figure, as though he had any ground to stand on. “You will not survive.”

“I’ve made it this far,” he returned, picking up his bowl of what seemed to be slop, carefully spooning it into his mouth. He only gave Tetsuji two extra spoonfuls, aggressively flinging them into the bottom of the man’s bowl. “I’ll keep you alive to spite your nephew, but once we are out of this cell, we are strangers.”

“Don’t bother,” Tetsuji’s laugh was almost demonic, and turned into a wracking cough. “He’ll hang me, soon. He’s growing impatient. And if he’s too cowardly to do it, consumption will do the job for him.”

Neil would figure out a way to get Tetsuji out of this cage alive, whether he liked it or not. He could die after for all Neil cared, but there was a common enemy, and it was no use persecuting each other whilst endangered. 

Tetsujii seemed to understand that. It was why he hadn’t uttered Neil’s true name. 

“I’ll see what I can manage,” Neil said, finishing his food and returning to his small sector of the cell. 

Jeremy came and sat beside him when he’d cleared everything up, looking to the small window that was blacked out by overgrowth on the outside. There was no glass there that they could break and use to end their own miseries, or stab a guard with. It let in the cold, but whatever obstructed it kept out the wet snow, so Neil decided he could live with the perpetual chill. 

“I find it’s best to exchange stories, in times like these,” Jeremy said, quiet. “Passes the time. Distracts from the cold.”

Neil copied his stance and leant his head back against the wall. “I have no stories to tell.” 

“Your skin says differently,” Jeremy pointed out. “I was involved in the liberation of Belzec. Were you sent to a camp?”

“I ran and hid,” Neil said, omitting any mention of his mother. “I was marked in preparation for Plaszow but escaped before I could be taken away.”

“Smart,” Jeremy acknowledged. 

“Lucky,” Neil corrected him. 

The soldier simply hummed. 

*

It was morning—or perhaps night, one could never be truly sure—when a loud banging on the cell door awoke Neil from a fitful sleep. 

Keys grated against the stiff padlock that kept them enclosed as Neil looked to his cellmates: Tetsuji was almost incoherent and Jeremy blinked, bleary eyed, as the cell was opened. 

“If it isn’t my favourites of the lot,” said Riko. It was too dark to see much at all, but Neil could still see the pearly white-teeth of his grin. “Hello, uncle.”

Tetsuji could hardly lift his head to acknowledge his nephew, neck cracking as his head rolled around. 

“I said—” Riko stomped forward.  _ A window,  _ Neil thought, looking at the unguarded door. Andrew stepped through, effectively quelling Neil’s hopes for escape. “ _ Hello,  _ uncle.”

Tetsuji mumbled something incomprehensible. Riko’s hands twitched with anger as a heavy boot sailed through the air and pinned his uncle’s chest to the wall. The nose of his shoe dug into Tetsuji’s throat, and the old man croaked. 

Jeremy was curled on his bench, watching anxiously and unsure of whether or not he could intervene. Neil made the decision for him. 

“Stop it,” he snapped. “If you’re going to kill him, kill him. Stop playing such sick and twisted games.” 

Riko moved away from his uncle to face Neil, oddly calm. “Well, well. Andrew mentioned you were suspiciously quiet in my absence. Isn’t this refreshing?” He looked to Andrew and barked out a laugh. “Such comfortable circumstances mustn’t be enough to quieten your tongue. If it’s what you so desire, degenerate.”

Fingers curled through Neil’s hair and pulled hard enough to rip out chunks. 

“On your feet. I have various plans for you.” 

Neil was shoved down the corridor: the stones were so cold and the candles so dim that he tripped over every uneven surface, the soles of his feet too numb to sense whether or not he was bleeding. Riko walked behind him, keeping something sharp—probably his bayonet—digging into his back. By his sides were Andrew, comically shorter than him, and a tall, stoic man with pale skin and dark hair. He was rather disinterested in the whole debacle, holding Neil’s elbow like his filth would rub off on him. 

Neil was shoved into a different room: his stomach rolled, seeing the gallow station. It was small, rickety, refined enough to fit into the small space. 

“Man the doors, Jean, Andrew,” Riko commanded. Andrew and the tall one stayed back as Neil was led onto the small wooden crate. 

_ This is it,  _ he thought. He was going to die. Because he spoke to soon, too loud, in front of the exact person he shouldn’t have. He had no foresight. His mother was going brutally berate him if he ever got into Shamayim. The lord wouldn’t send him to hell. He  _ hoped  _ he wouldn’t be sent to hell. That’s where his father was. 

Riko shoved him against the narrow post, hand closed around his throat as he procured the rope. It was laid around Neil’s neck, loose. Only when Riko began tightening it did Neil close his eyes to pray. 

“I’m not killing you yet, filthy traitor,” Riko laughed. Neil was struggling to breathe, right on the tips of his toes as his arms were secured behind the post. The tip of his knife cut down the front of Neil’s jumpsuit, exposing his chest. 

“Well isn’t that just a garish sight,” Riko remarked. “It’s a shame I don’t have a clean canvas to work on.”

Neil mustered up what little energy he had left and snarled; “Fuck you.”

  
The smile slipped off Riko’s face: his deadened gaze scared Neil even more. It was far too much like his father, whose smile never reached his eyes, and who never took particular interest in Neil—not even when he was pressing new blades into Neil’s skin. 

“If it begins to hurt too much,” Riko said. “Feel free to scream.”

Neil tried. He tried not to give in to what Riko wanted. But when the monstrous man began criss-crossing over the new slits in Neil’s sides, agony fell out from his mouth, wild and frantic and desperate. 

By the door, Andrew and Jean looked away. 

*


	6. The Foxhole Cell

Neil woke up, stiff and aching. It took him a few minutes to risk opening his eyes, and when he did, he only encountered more darkness. 

He was lying on his back. His throat and wrists ached, skin bruised and raw with rope burn. His ribs and stomach throbbed. He wasn’t sure he could move at all. 

It took him a while to attempt the journey upright, but when he did, he hit his head. Confused, he put his hand out: his fingertips just brushed the ceiling of the cell. His stomach rolled. 

He’d heard of things like this, whilst scouting for the Foxes in Metto. Different types of cells, used to prolong isolation torture. Cells where inmates had to sit in freezing water for hours. Cells just big enough for one person to stand in, shoulders touching the walls either side. 

And foxhole cells, where the ceilings were too short, too short to even sit up without being slouched over (if you were lucky and short, as Neil was). Often it meant being at the mercy of the rats. Neil couldn’t tell if he’d been gnawed at by rodents, seeing as his entire body seared with Riko’s knife work, but if he did, disease would cut him out fast. 

His stomach knotted and unknotted itself. He eventually rolled onto his hands and feet—only his torso was severely damaged—and moved towards the door in an attempt to find some light. There was a slit that he could push, exposing a small beam of light from the corridor. 

What Neil could see was a sight for sore eyes, but strangely enough, his entire upper half was wrapped in what looked like fresh bandages. His jumpsuit was bloody but not lacerated. He must have been redressed whilst unconscious, his bandages changed maybe three or four times, depending on how long and how deep Riko had gone with his blade. 

Surely this wasn’t normal prison punishment. Bandages, spare clothes. Yes, he was in an isolation cell with only rats for company, but he should have already contracted some form of infection. 

“You’re alive,” came a familiar voice, as two eyes peered through the little slit. Neil looked up, gazing into apathetic golds. “How did you manage that?”

“Not sure,” Neil said, accusatorily. “Ask the man who cleaned and bandaged me.”

For a moment, Andrew was quiet. 

“I assume Moriyama wants me to half heal, then reopen my wounds all over again.”

“No,” Andrew confirmed. “He left you to rot and he’s gone to meet his brother to stay safe from the revolt. I bathed and bandaged you.” 

Neil’s fingers curled into little, hopeful fists. “Why?”

He could hear Andrew’s teeth grinding. “You have information I want. Information Riko doesn’t want me to have.”

Neil shuffled closer to the door. “Let me out.”

“No.” 

“I won’t tell you otherwise.” 

“You’ll tell me, if you don’t want me to open the vents and let the rats in.”

Neil shuddered. There had to be something he could exchange Andrew, something more tangible than truths. When he remembered his decision regarding Tetsuji, he rose his head back up. 

“Have Tetsuji bathed and visited by a physician for medicine. Give him half my food rations. Then I’ll tell you.” 

“I hope you’re aware of who he is.”

“Very much so. I promise honesty if Tetsuji remains alive.”

Andrew simply looked at him, then left. Neil sighed, resting against the short wall. His body creaked with indignation as the odd, scrunched position, his abdomen almost on fire, but it was fine. 

He was alive. He had to be fine. 

*

The second time Neil was visited, he almost thanked Andrew: he was that incredibly bored that he suspected he was close to insanity, so the cadence of his voice disturbing the monotony of the dark and the distant screams was very welcome. 

“Any chance you’ll let me out of this rabbit hole?” Neil ground out, laid down to give his slouched back a reprieve. He twisted his hips from left to right, the scabs on his front beginning to crack and peel and ooze foul fluids as his wounds sealed shut. He realised Andrew would be watching him stretch, but couldn’t find it within him to care. 

Andrew cleared his throat, looking away. “No.”

Neil huffed out a sigh. “Alright. Tetsuji?”

Andrew hesitated, then muttered: “Recovering.”

Neil hummed. “What proof do I have that you’re not just bluffing? It’s not like I can wriggle over and peer through the angled slit to see him if you parade him down the hall.”

“You are—” Andrew ground his teeth together. “Insufferable.”

Neil was just relieved to have company. If he wasn’t so hell-bent on getting out of here, the fact he’d lowered himself to be in the company of an Evermore soldier, a Raven nonetheless, would have been too blasphemous to consider. Seeing as he’d spent God-knows how many days cramped in a cell that couldn’t be anymore than 100 centimetres tall, and that Andrew was currently his only resource for escaping his literal living hell, he’d take what he could get. 

“So I have been told,” Neil agreed. 

“I don’t understand,” Andrew managed. “How are you—most would be in hysterics.”

“I’ve spent far too much of my life cramped in small, dark spaces to let it get the better of me,” Neil said, offhandedly. “If my father caught me writing my name in Hebrew he would lock me in a small, mildewy closet in the basement without food and a few times without water for days at a time.” 

Outside, something shuffled. It sounded like the soldier was sitting down. 

“I was in an orphanage in Germany,” he said. He sounded tired. “I was small enough for the pantry cupboards.” 

Neil leant against the door, cold to the touch and unforgiving. It was as good of an opportunity as ever. “Nicky said Aaron came to Columbia with his mother. Why were you in Germany?”

Andrew shifted again, standing up. Neil barely had a moment before the door was unlocked and thrown open: there Andrew stood, holding the food he was meant to be delivering before getting side-tracked by Neil’s tangents. 

Furious. But quietly, in his own way.

He threw the bowl at Neil and it skidded across the concrete floor, his portion of dinner spilling onto the ground. Worse than Neil’s lack of food was the dead look in Andrew’s eyes. Neil, unused to the amount of light that was flooding into his little foxhole cell, squinted up at the man, only to shudder at the soulless gaze that he returned. 

With that, he slammed the cell door shut again, rendering Neil somewhat blinded and baffled. 

Of course: he’d said he was left in an orphanage. His twin wasn’t.

Neil made a note to not mention his mother again. 

*

The third time Andrew visited, he leaned against the door without peeping in. There was no one else that Neil thought would come near his cell, so he felt it was safe to assume it was who he suspected it was. 

“Thank you for the plum,” Neil murmured. It was too dark to see where he’d thrown the pip, but he’d cleaned it right off. It was too cold for it to be perfectly ripe but he’d savoured every bite, the juice on his chin, the skin and stem and sweet flesh. 

“New shipment from the south,” Andrew said. Neil smiled. 

“You have thirty seconds,” he continued, key in the door. “Thirty seconds to see the uncle. That’s all I can give you. Everyone else is asleep.” 

_ If we’re seen, we’re in trouble,  _ Neil deduced, wondering when it’d become a ‘we’. He was too excited to stand up to care, waiting eagerly as the cell door opened. When he stumbled to his feet, his legs trembled, the already weak muscles beginning to atrophy due to a lack of physical movement. His torso was still sore, blood spots forming on his jumpsuit. He’d taken the bandages off to air: they had been sodden through anyway. It was bright in the corridor, lit by candles. Andrew gave him a dismissive look before turning and marching on his heel. 

Neil followed, gait turned inwards and awkward. His functionality would be severely impacted if he had no legs to run on, but he hoped this would be the spark for the strange exchange of information Andrew was defecting for. The sooner Neil convinced Andrew that Aaron and Nicky were alive, the sooner he could convince Andrew to help him escape. 

Maybe he’d come with him. Or maybe he’d stay by Riko’s side and infiltrate. Neil was sure it was Riko who had convinced him of his family’s deaths, so whether or not Andrew wanted to fulfil his own path of vengeance would be up to him. 

Neil just wanted to escape. Neil just wanted to see the sky again. See his Foxes again. See the Den river and the hospital bunker and Matt with his little rowboat. He had no clue what it was like outside.

“How long have I been here?”

“It’s the 31st of October,” Andrew said, always giving ground to Neil’s requests. Like Neil wasn’t a Jewish rebel. Like Neil wasn’t the biggest threat to Andrew’s sanctimonious life. 

Then again, Neil thought, looking around at the dank basement: it wasn’t exactly the sanctimonious life Neil would’ve personally strived for. 

“Only seven days?” he mumbled, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. The rope burn was healing relatively fine, though his neck was still tender. The bones in his wrist were protruding enough to probably stab someone. Andrew kept walking in front of him.

They arrived at Neil’s old cell, Andrew standing back with his arms crossed. Neil immediately clasped at the bars, looking in. 

“Neil,” Jeremy said, coming closer. “Is that really you? By God,” he gasped. “I thought you were dead. I truly thought you had been hung!” 

“I’m fine,” Neil said, though he felt close to passing out. “Where is Tetsuji?”

“Here,” the man answered, sitting on what was Neil’s bunk. He’d gained colour in his skin. There was salve on his sores, and his hair was no longer plastered to his forehead with feverish sweat. Neil nodded at him and he nodded back. 

“Satisfied?” Andrew demanded, keeping his eye on the corridor. Neil turned around and nodded once. Andrew gave Neil a once-over and sighed, two fingers to each of his temples. 

“Fucking hell,” he muttered, stalking off in a new direction. Neil was left behind in the corridor outside his old cell, unbound and alone, until Andrew glanced over his shoulder. “I’m going to let you shower,” he said. “Are you coming?”

“I think he likes you,” Jeremy whispered from behind his bars. Neil gave him a bemused glance before following the Raven soldier. 

The cold water was a balm to his grimy skin. He rinsed his hair and under his nails, gently washing away all the bloody debris that came with healing. There was even a bar of soap handy, which Neil clung to with his needle-thin fingers. 

Neil gently toweled himself off, expecting more blood and finding little to none. Pleased, he shuffled over to the spare jumpsuits kept in the storage closet, and pulled it on. 

From his old jumpsuit to his new one, he pinned his  _ róka  _ pin, hidden under the crease of the belt.

Andrew was sat facing away again. Neil had to ask. 

“Why won’t you look at me?” he inquired. “Am I truly that hideous?”

Andrew glanced at him, saw that he was dressed, then looked back to the door. “I have seen worse.”

“You have inflicted worse.”

“It seems that you might’ve too.”

“We all do what we have to survive, don’t we?”

  
Andrew stood up from the stool, shaking out a cigarette. “And there’s your answer.”

Neil hadn’t a clue what that answer meant. Especially in regards to Andrew—looking. How was granting Neil privacy aiding Andrew’s survival?

He went out on a limb and asked “Can I have a cigarette?”

Andrew flung one out too fast, avoiding touching Neil’s skin because of course he wouldn’t let himself touch something as morally and physically filthy as a Jewish rebel. Neil hesitantly took the lighter and lit the end of his cigarette, the tobacco a welcome scent. It reminded him of his mother, all her harsh edges and her softer whispers, the end of the war in 1945, sharing a smoke with Matt on breaks as they rebuilt the Chain Bridge. 

“What do you want to know?” Neil took a long drag from his light, letting it curl in the frigid air of the room. 

Andrew observed him from through his lashes. “Aaron and Nicky.”

“Your brother and your cousin, yes.”

  
“When did you last see them?”

Neil’s laughter was dry. “In the crowds of the riots. Nicky was the first to cut out the Evermore crest from his flag. Aaron probably would’ve hightailed it back to St Johns to recruit medical personnel for the bunker.”

Andrew went stiff. “They’re dead.”

Neil shook his head. 

He looked at his cigarette. “I’ve seen the certificates. I’ve seen the remnants of their bodies. A birthmark that Aaron and I share—” 

“How did they die?” Neil demanded. 

Andrew hesitated, before giving Neil a flat stare. “Blown up by homemade rebel landmines.”

Neil shook his head. “That would’ve blown their legs off, maybe their lower half. There would have been enough of their top half to recognise. They’re alive, Andrew. Nicky and I share a room.” 

Andrew’s lips twisted into a snarl. “We’re not on a first-name basis, prisoner.”

“If you don’t believe me, go see for yourself,” Neil said softly. He undid the belt of his jumpsuit, unzipped the bodice and relieved the pin of its material clasp. He held it out: it glinted softly, a smudge of blood on one corner. “You won’t be hurt by the rebels wearing this. They’ll let you into the bunker, where the stronghold should still be.” He put it into Andrew’s hand: their skin brushed. Andrew’s palms were rough with callouses, his fingers broad and strong. Neil curled Andrew’s fingers over his pin and levelled him with a stern gaze. 

“Hurt any of them and I’ll kill you myself,” Neil vowed. “Bring this back to me with your decision. It means a lot to me—the pin, and your choice.”

Andrew stared at the gold accessory for longer than Neil thought he would. Slowly, he brought his hand to his chest and slid the pin into his breast pocket. 

“If you are lying,” Andrew started.

“I haven’t lied to you yet,” Neil retorted. “Why would I start now?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :DDD


	7. Intermission: Andrew

Andrew pulled the strap of his rifle tighter as he walked by abandoned shop fronts, old rations posters and advertisements flapping in the wind. 

Much of the fighting had annulled itself when Riko left three days ago, the parliament offering false promises of democratic process and constitutional freedoms to the people of Columbia. Andrew knew it was all bullshit: Riko was just in the process of wheedling a militia out of his older brother to reclaim the city that’d fallen to the wayside and reestablish his regime. 

He would come back with force. 

Which was why this was Andrew’s only opportunity. 

Jean had become adept at ignoring Andrew’s own deviances, almost doubling Jeremy Knox’s rations when he didn’t think anyone noticed. Thea was so often absent that Andrew wasn’t sure whether or not the last time he saw her would be the last time he’d ever see her again. And Kevin, well.

Kevin had apparently been shot in his left hand during those initial protests. He was recovering elsewhere, somewhere Andrew wasn’t permitted to know of. Perhaps out of the city, or even the country. Wherever Kevin was, it was somewhere that Andrew couldn’t reach him. Andrew wasn’t sure if Riko had done that on purpose, or if he’d just lost control of his squadron all together. The last conversation Kevin and Andrew had shared was the night before he and his fellow soldiers had rained gunfire down on the writhing crowd. He’d whispered under his breath that he had bought Thea a diamond ring and Jean a platinum one, and that he, Thea and perhaps Jean would run off to Ireland. 

_ You know,  _ Kevin had whispered.  _ When everything quiets down.  _

Now he was injured and gone. Probably dead.

Andrew hadn’t thought Kevin would have the guts to go against Riko. The man who was almost his brother. The man he had grown up with. Each of them knew their own moral spectrums, but acting out against Riko just wasn’t a viable option for the other three. They had been risen together. They knew nothing but each other. 

Andrew wasn’t like that, which made him all the more dangerous. Riko thought he had secured Andrew’s loyalty when he’d recruited him from Easthaven by weaving a tale of rebels and dead family. Andrew was never a nationalist, but he was hellbent on his promises, and Riko knew that. 

He shouldn’t have assumed Andrew would change his loyalty to Riko over time. It was always to his family. It would always be to his family.

Neil Josten was a piece of fucking work. His skin was tanned enough that even sickly and malnourished he didn’t look white. Not to mention his brilliant red hair, as fiery as his tongue. He’d seemed to have lost any sense of self-preservation he might’ve had before, if he’d outlived the disasters splayed across his skin. His father seemed like the pinnacle of an awful man. 

Andrew had never known a Jewish person by name before. Only by number.

He didn’t like the way it was changing things. 

Perimeter Avenue connected Vixen Square to Perimeter Square: Andrew careened past the dead shopfronts and the abandoned automobiles, stepping over shredded flags with a scarf over his nose and mouth, trench coat covered in soot. Fires still raged. Gunpowder was thick in the air. He traversed down Perimeter drive till he arrived at Chain Bridge, watching carefully. From his pocket, he withdrew Josten’s gold pin, spinning it between his fingers. 

There were guards posted at the opposite end of the bridge, barricading Pal from Evermore access even now that everything had calmed. Andrew hadn’t ventured outside much whilst the fighting was at its worst, seeing as the Evermore Headquarters had been a prime target for their hate and violence. His lips twisted at the thought of it but he kept walking anyway. 

The guards saw him coming from the other side, already alert. 

This was test one. If Aaron was alive, perhaps they’d recognise him. 

“What do you want?” one of them called. 

Andrew opened his hands in surrender, holding up the pin. The two guards eyed each other, blatantly surprised. 

“Doctor,” the other guard asked. “We didn’t realise you’d left Pal.”

“Emergency,” Andrew lied, heart thrumming in his chest.  _ Doctor. _

“You look much better. How is the wound?”

Andrew’s eye twitched. “What?”

They looked at each other again. 

“It’s—very sore.” Andrew continued through gritted teeth. “Is that all?” 

“I mean,” one said.

“Sure?” the other echoed, stepping aside. Andrew passed through, pulling his scarf back up over his nose, pinning the badge to his breastplate. It was many stairs up to the top of Pal’s hill but he was able to cut through the abandoned royal gardens. It felt as though he were the only man in the world as he looked out over Palmetto, the mountain ranges that edged Columbia’s border. 

It took another half hour to find the entrance. When he did, his stomach rolled. 

There were various individuals within the first room, immediately alert at someone appearing on the doorstep of their bunker. They all immediately relaxed at the sight of him. One rose up their metal mug in salute. 

“Good to see you up, doctor!” 

Andrew just nodded, stepping over the various men sprawled throughout the room. It was similar along the corridors, little welcomes and notes of concern. His heart rate was dangerously fast. Neil was right. Neil was  _ right.  _

Andrew had been on the wrong side. Andrew had been fighting his own family. For nothing. 

And now Aaron was apparently recovering from injury. 

_ Because of me. Because of me. Because of me.  _

He slammed open every door, finding only wards and recovering rebels. The stench was foul. Something was wrong with the water supply, apparently. No connections to St Johns. Running out of bandages. Infection rampant. In the surgery rooms, a man was having an amputated arm sealed closed. A woman on the opposite table was crying over a blue-faced infant, having just given birth to something lifeless. The whole place was ripe with tragedy. 

Andrew never got lost. His memory was too sharp to let him forget where he’d been, but it still took a while to canvas the majority of the bunker. Everywhere he went, the mint-green doors lead to wards and dwindling supplies and the foul stench of misery. The last corridor was long and narrow, and down the end was a large room, the sign on the doorway stating  _ comms.  _

He shoved open the heavy door with his shoulder and found a long table, every head turned towards the commotion he’d made in lieu of a cordial entrance. 

His brother was staring at him, bone-white. He was in a wheelchair. Behind him was a woman Andrew didn’t recognise with wild brown curls, and lounging in a chair beside him was Nicky, right as rain. Her stomach was swollen with pregnancy. 

Alive. They were  _ alive. _

“Andrew,” Aaron stumbled out of his chair, clutching onto his stomach. “ _ Andrew?”  _

“How the fuck did he—”

“Who is that—”

“Who’s  _ pin  _ is that—?”

“Andrew!” Nicky cried out, aghast. “Andrew, but—how? What are you doing here?”

“You’re alive,” he mumbled weakly, a sudden weight sliding off his shoulders and dropping to the floor. Aaron was closer first, so Andrew grabbed him with hands either side of his head. “You’re hurt. Where are you hurt?”

“It’s not, Andrew, really, I—” Aaron looked bewildered. “I—I was attending an Evermore soldier. Woke up and got stabbed with a scalpel. I’m alright, truly.” 

“Andrew, oh God,” Nicky managed, eyes watering. “Oh—I didn’t think I’d see you again. Oh, fuck.  _ Andrew.  _ How did you get here?”

“Where’s Neil?” came a strangled voice. It was a tall man that Andrew vaguely recognised—

Boyd. Matthew Boyd. “Where is he?” 

Andrew just stared. 

“You fucking monster,” Danielle Wilds managed, standing up. “You should have let him go. He did  _ nothing  _ wrong!” 

“You should go,” Aaron murmured, too quiet for anyone else to hear. “You need to go before they kill you. I won’t be able to stop them.”

Andrew didn’t want to leave Aaron again. He couldn’t leave Aaron again. Or Nicky. 

“How dare you,” a German girl snarled, with long blonde hair. Renee was by her side, looking conflicted as she saw Andrew again after so long. Once upon a time they have been on the same squadron. “How dare you come here, wearing our symbol. Is that Neil’s pin? Did you take it from his body?” She was shaking. “I’ll rip your throat out.  _ Monster.” _

“Go,” Aaron insisted. 

Andrew went.


	8. Perimeter Avenue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's a very graphic nightmare in the opening. please be careful <3

When Neil wasn’t cramming himself against the door in hopes of hearing Andrew return, or eating the slop they shoved through the little hatch in the door, he was asleep. 

And when he slept, he did so with waking fits and starts, tossing and turning and scraping his already mottled skin raw on the concrete ground. If he was lucky, he would awake before the horrors could materialise, sweating and gasping, his fingers curled into fists. 

Tonight he wasn’t so lucky. 

“Nathanael,” his father whispered, his voice more hiss-like than human. “Wake up. Wake  _ up.”  _

His father had so often worn the crisp uniforms that allied him with Germany’s Nazi regime that it was easy to forget that he was simply a Polish scientist, who let his fanaticism go a little too far. Neil sometimes wondered what his life would be like, should his father had been untouched by their insanity and hatred. Would he have still turned on his wife and son, and prepared them to be sent away? Would his scientific methods still have been used to configure new and horrid ways of torturing, maiming, murdering? 

Would he have ever been a normal father, if given the chance?

In his dreams, his father tugged him out of bed. Forced him into a coat and some shoes. Dragged him by the hair into a corridor, but it wasn’t his. It was carved from stone, with little slits for air ventilation. The air was ripe with bleach. 

“Quit stumbling, boy,” his father snapped, shoving him forward. Neil tripped again, over something soft, rounded. When he looked down, he saw a severed arm. Behind him and his father were trails of bodies, dismembered and haphazardly thrown around. 

  
There was blood on the walls. There was blood everywhere. They weren’t in the bunker anymore, but a wooden warehouse, with bunk-beds lining the walls. Everyone was in chains, with hoods pulled over their heads. 

“Abram!” his mother called, somewhere in the midst of the shuffling bodies. Tattooed arms. Starved to the bone. “Abram, help me!”

“Mother,” he croaked, trying to take a step forward. “Ma!” He couldn’t move.  _ Why? Why couldn’t he move? _ He looked up, behind him. All he could see was a rope, and the crest of a gallow.

When he looked back, Riko Moriyama was leaning up on the tips of his toes, grinning. 

“So you are  _ the  _ Nathanael,” he whispered. “Does Kevin know who you are? Does Kevin know  _ what  _ you are?” Riko pulled on the rope that was around his neck. 

“Andrew,” Neil rasped, looking to the shadow who stood opposite. “Andrew, help me.”

Riko just laughed. “Andrew? Andrew won’t help you.”

The room before Neil was lit up, beams of light shining on the various posts that lined the walls of the hanging room. From every rope hung one of Neil’s family: Nicky, Aaron, his pregnant wife Katelyn, Renee, Betsy, Seth, Allison, Matt, Dan, Abby, Wymack. Their bodies swayed despite the lack of breeze. Neil wanted to scream. 

Down the end of the corridor was Andrew. On his knees. Staring at his hands. His palms were crossed with rope burns, his wrists shackled with guilt. 

“Andrew,” Neil croaked, but the rope was pulled too tight—

“Neil.” A hand on his shoulder.  _ “Neil.”  _

  
“Ma?” 

“Fuck’s sake,” the voice huffed. Something slapped his cheek. “Get up.” 

Neil cracked his eyes open. Light had flooded into his dismal cell, illuminating its sorry state. Bowls, human defecation, blood and bandages were strewn around the four corners of the sorry concrete box. He shifted and looked up, blinking owlishly at the shadow, shrouded in orange light. 

“Get up.” 

Neil squinted at the pint-sized man. “Andrew?”

He made a scathing noise. “I said:  _ get up.” _

Neil scrambled to his feet, outside the cell. Everything was quiet and still: he rubbed the dream from the backs of his eyelids and blinked at his captor. 

In his open palm was Neil’s  _ róka _ pin, the diamond and the fox symbol within. Neil held onto it with frail fingers, the pin pressing into his palm hard enough to sting. 

The look in Andrew’s eyes was enough for Neil to understand. Carefully, Neil offered his hand, palm angled upwards. What he assumed would be a simple shake of hands turned into something else as Andrew’s hand circled Neil’s wrist, then continued up his forearm till he could hold the back of Neil’s elbow. His head drooped, a shiver ran up his spine as Neil mirrored him curling his fingers in the material of Andrew’s coat. . 

“Are they alive?” Neil whispered. “Andrew, please tell me they’re alive.”

“I hate that word,” he snapped, voice hoarse. 

“Okay,” Neil agreed, fingers trailing over the broad cliff of Andrew’s shoulder. “Andrew—are we leaving?” 

“I found you a coat,” he responded, avoiding a direct answer. Hope buzzed beneath his skin. He had been right. He had been  _ right.  _ Andrew was no monster: just a misguided man, turned into a machine. He clung onto the man’s arm as he was guided down the corridor. 

“Monster,” came a voice. Andrew whipped around, knife freed from a hidden sheath. Neil clutched onto his left arm, blinking owlishly until his eyes adjusted to the dark. 

Jean Moreau stood at the end of the corridor, hand on his holster. Neil yearned for his gun more than ever.

Andrew looked at him, silent. A conversation that Neil couldn’t possibly fathom passed between them, until Jean said;

“A nest is only as strong as its loosest twig,” Jean said and pulled out the revolver.

“Who are any of us loyal to? Not him. Fear is not loyalty.” Andrew shot back. “Think about it, Moreau.”

The gun rose up to point at Andrew’s head. “He should have never sought you out. He fought to have you here, and this is how you repay him?”

“He extorted me to be here. What did he tell you? That the Allies killed your parents? It’s not true.”

“Of course it’s not,” Jean returned. “I watched Kengo Moriyama slit their throats. They were traitors.”

“And now Kevin is gone, and Thea is only loyal to Kevin. What do you have left to lose, Jean?” 

Jean flicked the safety off.

“Say goodbye to Jeremy for me,” Neil blurted, voice raw. Andrew’s grip on his wrist curled too tight. 

Jean’s grimace faltered, hesitation clear in the furrow of his brow. He glanced to Neil only once. 

“He was kind to me,” Neil continued. “Is he kind to you, too?” 

The gun shook as he lowered it. Jean slowly closed his eyes and whispered; “Get out.” 

Andrew slowly re-sheathed his knife. 

“Get  _ out.”  _

They ran. Up the stairs and around the corner, Neil’s bare feet feeling every crevice in the polished marble of the building’s first floor. 

“What good is a blade in a gunfight?” Neil panted as Andrew tugged him behind a pillar. He tore a piece of material from the dress-shirt beneath his coat. 

“Shut up,” he groused, tying the gag around Neil’s mouth. “Head down. I’m going to pretend I’m escorting you elsewhere.” 

Neil nodded. There was something in Andrew’s eyes. Something beyond anger. Perhaps disbelief, at his own betrayal, at Riko’s lies, at Jean’s resignation. His Raven faction was collapsing around him and it was all his fault. 

Neil shouldn’t have trusted this man in black, with a red raven embroidered into the collar of his trenchcoat, armed to the teeth in places no one would suspect. But he was Neil’s only chance.

He could smell it. The air was fresh, the breeze mobile and free. His chest yearned for it: he knew he couldn’t have been down there for too long, if the state of his wounds was anything to go by, but it didn’t matter: it could have been years and he’d be just as relieved. 

They passed by no one but idle guards as they exited through the headquarters and a barricaded garden: Andrew wasn’t questioned but the looks Neil received were more than perplexed. He kept his head down, collar up as he walked, keeping as close to Andrew as he could. 

Beyond the walls was Perimeter Avenue. All Neil could see was that his city was in tatters. 

Debris was everywhere: buildings surrounding the Moriyama’s headquarters were burned and bashed, whilst shopfronts a little further down were boarded up and silent. The immediate area surrounding the headquarters was completely deserted, but merely a few streets away, things were a little more lively. 

Some stores were beginning to open. Two children were skipping with a rope that looked like it’d once held up a nationalist flag. The flags themselves were everywhere, hung with the distinct hole cut out from the centre that got rid of the Moriyama emblem. Others were celebrating, cheering about promises of democracy and freedom. Neil didn’t understand their joyful cries: he’d had no idea what had passed whilst in the basement. All the while Andrew kept his collar flipped up, head down, a cap from his pocket covering his hair. With the rifle strapped across his back, he was hardly the man Neil had first met. 

He almost looked like a rebel. Except for that posture. 

After perhaps twenty minutes of walking, Neil leaned over to dry-heave into the gutter. His legs were spasming twitching with exhaustion. Andrew looked over his shoulder and frowned. 

“What is it?” he demanded. 

Neil had been reserving his foulest glare for when they were in apt lighting. Andrew didn’t seem moved. “Oh, I’m not quite sure: would it be the beatings, starvation, or not being allowed to walk for however long I was stuck down there in that cell?” 

Behind them, sirens blared. 

“Jean,” Andrew murmured. 

“Fucker.” Neil managed. 

Andrew just shook his head. “It’s self preservation. He let us go: that is good enough.” With fingers around Neil’s wrist, Andrew tugged him further down the street. 

A woman, startled by the alarms, was just about to depart on her bicycle. Neil watched as Andrew stopped in front of her, holding out a wad of cash that was three times more than the bicycle was worth. She looked at him with disbelief before relieving his hand of the cash and leaving the bike, running into a narrow passageway. 

Neil balanced himself on the handlebars and pushed his feet into the small basket in front of him, his entire body protesting at the uncomfortable position, just as Andrew settled and set off. 

With the wind in his hair and one of Andrew’s hands steadying his waist, the other on the handlebars, Neil let his laughter free. It was rough, weakened by raw vocal chords, but real nevertheless. The sky was still clouded with soot, smoke and debris, but Neil didn’t care. It was the best day of his life. 

The incredulity didn’t last long as they sped past the wreckage of a compact war. Palmetto was a disaster zone. One family was nailing together a wooden coffin. A car was charcoal black, windows shattered, hood and tires melted into the cobble. It was a microcosm of the Nazi occupation, but Neil’s teeth ground together anyway. He blamed it on the pain, but in reality he’d grown rather attached to Palmetto. His mother would crawl out of her frozen grave to berate him if he ever said it out loud, but with the  _ róka  _ he’d almost felt at home. It never quite fit—there always seemed to be  _ something  _ out of sorts—but he’d given up on trying to find it. 

“You’re thinking too much,” Andrew muttered, when the bike drew to a pause close to Chain Bridge. Neil was a little breathless, despite having not contributed to the push of the bike. He slid off the handlebars and tripped over his own useless feet and stiff legs, but Andrew held him up with hands on his biceps. Neil leant back into him slightly. It was hard to not feel a kinship with the man who’d saved his life, even if he had stood by for however long Neil had been down there. 

Neil nestled the pin on his up-turned collar. “Just in case.” Andrew looked away. 

Neil let Andrew slot his arm into the crook of Neil’s elbow to hold him up. He was surprised to see that the only personnel on the bridge were two guards at the entrance to Pal, stood with dusty rifles and exhaustion in their sallow skin. Everything had calmed but a rebel force would have to be idiots to lower their weapons. Just because the Moriyamas were out of ammunition did not mean they were safe. 

“Hey!” one of the guards snapped. “It’s you again! Piss off, Minyard lookalike! We know you’re not the doctor.” 

Neil squinted and almost laughed. Of course it was Jack and Sheena: there wasn’t anyone else he’d rather welcome him back. He rose up his hand—it hurt, a bit—and waved to them. 

“He’s with me.” 

Jack grimaced. “Who the fuck are you?” 

Neil rolled his eyes, attempting to wipe the dirt off his cheeks so that his scars would show. “Surely I’m not that unrecognisable.” 

“Neil?” Sheena wondered. “Josten? We thought you were dead!” She let out a laugh. “Holy shit! That was the whole reason this all started! Nicky said he watched you die -”

“Nicky is nothing but a melodramatic,” Andrew groused. 

“Is this some kind of joke?” Jack pointed a revolver at Andrew. “We know what you are. Raven scum. There’s no way I’m letting you through.”

“Jack,” Neil warned. “I already said he’s with me.”

The young man looked at him with wide eyes. “You can’t possibly be serious.”

“How the fuck would I have gotten out of prison otherwise? Good to see you haven’t grown a bigger brain whilst I was gone.” 

“Shame they didn’t cut out your damned tongue,” Jack muttered as Neil and Andrew glided past. 

Neil looked up, blinking away the smoke and haze. Pal’s hill stood, just as it always had. Neil remembered the last time he’d walked down the twisting pathways, cutting in front of the old castle and diplomat’s court. They’d all walked across Chain Bridge together, arm in arm, spirits buoyed for the student’s protest. 

_ Look how that turned out,  _ Neil thought, bitterly. It helped that the sun peered out from behind the exuberant buildings on the top of the hill. 

“Perhaps we should have brought the bike,” Neil offered, when he saw that the Funicular was certainly not functioning. 

Andrew just shook his head and took Neil off in the correct direction. Neil knew he’d been here once, but it still was a drearily complicated place to navigate. How could he know where he was going? 

They rounded the hill to the other side rather than climbing over it, where Andrew helped Neil slowly up the steps to the ambulant entrance.

“I’m tired,” Neil whispered, looking at the entrance to his home with some trepidation. Who knows how many injured were within its walls? Who knows who he could have lost without knowing? He knew that Aaron and Nicky were alive—but Andrew wasn’t going to care about anyone else. Neil could be walking back into a funeral ceremony and wouldn’t have a clue. 

“I told you to quit thinking,” Andrew grumbled. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

“Shut up,” Neil muttered weakly. Andrew arched a brow. “I’m fine. Let’s just go in.”

It was early enough in the morning that most were asleep, tucked into corners and on haphazard stretchers. Men dressed in blood-stained white were moving dead bodies to the morgue. A woman was reshelving a supplies cupboard as another was scrubbing and wringing out used bandages, hanging them to dry on the cupboard doors. Neil kept his head down, trying to ignore the state of the hospital. Aaron would’ve had his hands full with this lot, though Neil could tell that the quietened status of the fighting would ease the suffering a little, with less patients coming in and more going out. 

A reassuring grasp on his shoulder had him looking at Andrew, who was stood just behind his shoulder. Neil never noticed it before—it’d been too dark—but the stark electric lights really showed how bright Andrew’s eyes were. They weren’t brown, but gold, or an amalgamations of greens and blues and pale browns. 

“Where do they all sleep?” Andrew prompted.

Neil swallowed and turned on his heel. The hallways weren’t completely clear, which hindered their progress, but eventually they passed by the comms room to the staff ward: it was small and separated into three sections, but all three had their lights on. Neil felt something clamp around his throat as he stepped over the lip of the door, squinting into the low light to see who was there. 

Six bunks were shoved against the walls: most still heralded human-sized lumps, but one was just pulling up his sheets, broad shoulders and calloused hands recognisable anywhere. 

“Wymack,” Neil managed, voice weak. 

David Wymack jolted out of his half-asleep state to glare at whoever had startled him, before his eyes were fractionally wider: he charged forward, and if Neil wasn’t years over his father’s death, he would never had held his ground: as it was, Neil let Wymack’s hands fall onto his shoulders, disbelief riddled in his features. 

“Dear God, Neil,” he remarked. “The fuck happened to you?”

Neil shrugged, leaning a little closer to rest his forehead on Wymack’s chest. The man’s chin fell on top of his head. 

“Don’t do that again,” the old man grumbled. “Don’t you  _ ever  _ do that again.”

“Yes, coach,” Neil mumbled. 

“Coach,” another voice yawned. “The hell is all the racket for? We being rampaged or are you just tryna avoid bein’ caught in Abby’s bunk?” 

Wymack stood aside, revealing Neil in all his glory. Nicky saw him—he saw the both of them—and shrieked at an ungodly pitch, rushing forward to envelope Neil into a fragile hug. His commotion awoke everyone else, including the ladies, who peered out of their closed-off sect to evaluate the threat. 

“Oh, my god,” Dan choked out, holding Neil’s battered face in her hands. When Allison saw that Dan’s husband was still (somehow) asleep, she kicked his shoulder. “Matthew Donovan Boyd, get your ass out of bed!” Neil let Dan hold him, her tears cool on his flushed skin. 

Matt rolled slowly off his mattress, blinking up at the gaggle of people who were gathered at the door of the ward. He stood up and saw Neil and froze. 

“Hey,” Neil offered. 

“Fucking hell,” he managed, voice hoarse. “Fucking  _ hell.”  _ Neil snorted into his shirt when Matt hugged him, too tight and too long but he found that he didn’t even mind. He’d been close with Matt for years—and even with all his denying of a proper friendship, his fear of being tethered down somewhere for too long—he couldn’t help but be relieved. That he was back. That they all cared. That he wasn’t alone any longer. 

Perhaps that foxhole cell had gotten into his head more than he thought. 

Some of the more junior members came out of the shadows, as well as Aaron and Katelyn, who took Andrew back away from the centre of attention. Neil watched as Nicky looked between him and his cousins, till Neil nudged his shoulder and gestured for him to follow. Renee too looked after Andrew with something darker in her eyes, though Neil was too thoroughly relieved to be home to ask. 

There was another male-shaped lump in the beds, one who hadn’t moved and one of whom no one tried to rouse. Seth, Neil guessed. It wasn’t like they’d been well-acquainted, and the militant seemed to think Neil was nothing but a short punk, who talked too much and did too little. Neil just shook his head and eyed Allison. 

“Seth doesn’t want to say hello?”

She stiffened suddenly, eyes cast downwards. 

  
“No, Neil,” Renee said, softly, as Dan’s arm reached around Allison’s waist to pull her close. “Seth was shot. When you were taken.” 

  
Neil was not pleased to discover that he wasn’t as unaffected by the news as he thought he’d be. As he should have been. Seth had never mattered to him: he was hot-headed and arrogant at the best of times, and at the worst, a volatile vulnerability. But he and Allison had been close—engaged, once upon a time. 

And—depending on the way you looked at it—the shooting was Neil’s fault. 

“I’m sorry,” he managed, curling his arms around his stomach. “He didn’t deserve it.” 

“Yeah, well.” Allison shrugged jerkily. “Such is war.” 

“That’s a new recruit, Neil,” Dan offered. “He’s actually—well, he’s -” 

“My son,” Wymack cut in. “He’s my son.” 

Neil just narrowed his eyes. “You have a son?”

“It was news to me too, kid.” 

“I suppose Minyard’s psycho twin is going to stick around, then,” Matt grumbled. 

“Like we can trust the tiny fucker,” Allison sneered. 

“He is loyal to his promises,” Neil murmured, softly. “He is loyal to his family. Riko knew it was how he could secure Andrew’s loyalty, but he was a fool to think Andrew wouldn’t inevitably discover the truth. So if you don’t want to trust him, fine. But keep Nicky and Aaron close, and Andrew won’t be a problem.” 

“Sounds like prison was just a gossip session,” Wymack grunted. 

Neil blinked, and saw the flickering candle lights, the shadows looming over the hallway. The concrete was under his back and just over his head, wet and cold and filthy. His body ached, his muscles spasming and scabs oozing. Worst of all were the ligatures and bruises around his neck that had kept him stiff, hanging from a post that was not quite high enough to end his suffering. Knife blades in the candle light. Wicked smiles. 

Neil cleared his throat. “Prison was fine.” 

Aaron reappeared, gaze cold and calculative. Katelyn was wheeling him around in an old chair with a haywire front wheel and a hellishly swollen stomach.

“The hell happened to you?” Neil remarked, looking to Andrew’s twin. 

“Could ask you the same,” Aaron muttered. “Got stabbed. Abby will have to fix you up: I’m no use to anyone right now.” 

Neil was fine with that: Abby had already seen his scars. He didn’t need no one else seeing them. He’d become too complacent with his vulnerabilities. 

Nodding, he let Abby’s arm drape over his shoulders and guide him out. Her smile was still as warm as Neil remembered it, the tension in his shoulders uncurling with the gentle squeeze of her fingers. She shuffled him into an examination room—half its usual size, a second bed and a privacy partition crammed in—and shut the door. 

“God, Neil,” she murmured, cupping his cheeks with her hands. “I’d ask you to quit giving me so much work, but it’s just about half of your personality.” 

He shrugged, awkward, and let her pull away his clothes. 

“Gracious,” she whispered, fingers curled over his heart. “What did they do to you? What did  _ he  _ do to you?”

“Don’t,” Neil warned. “It wasn’t Andrew.” 

“Lie down.” 

He did as he was told. Her brow was furrowed as she worked, cleaning and surveying stitch and cut and graze and bruise, one after another. Various antibiotics collected themselves in a ceramic bowl as she checked out various wounds and abrasions. 

“He did these stitches, didn’t he,” Abby wondered aloud. “Too similar to Aaron’s handiwork.”

“They’re twins.” 

“Andrew is not a professionally trained doctor.”

“Aaron isn’t certified yet, either.” 

“He is,” Abby insisted, mildly amused. “A doctor from St Johns aided us for a few hectic evenings and decided to certify him, after assessing his work. Aaron and I will deliver the baby, in time. Not too long now.”

“This is no place for a baby,” Neil insisted. 

“No,” Abby agreed. Neil hissed as she undid an unruly stitch. “It’s not. But what choice do we have? The borders of Columbia are locked down. All supplies into Palmetto are isolated. They say we have won, but victory is more than just the raise of a white flag. Of course this is no place for a child, Neil.” 

Neil just stared at the ceiling. 

“Oh, and Neil?” she said, as she applied the last bandage. “Don’t even think about helping with patients whilst you have open wounds. I know both Aaron and Katelyn are out of commission for a little while, but we can wait a few days for your help.” 

Neil rolled his eyes, sitting back up. Abby gave him new clothes to wear, new socks and boots to match. He swallowed down his medications with water and warm food—of which he almost threw back up again—as Abby cleaned up around him. 

“You know,” she said idly as she washed her hands. Neil tried not to focus on how much his jaw hurt as he chewed on the soup-sodden bread. It was the tastiest thing he’d eaten in his life, even though said flavour was cardboard with a hint of leek. “It’s rather coincidental that Andrew’s here, seeing as—” 

“Abby,” came a new voice, door to the examination room bursting inwards. One of his hands was a bandaged stump. A man stumbled in, gangly and definitely six-foot. Even without his red and black garb, he still had that 二 _(ni),_ now properly tattooed onto his cheek rather than drawn. The green eyes, the black hair and chipped tooth were much the same since Neil had last seen the man as a ten year old. 

Kevin blinked at him, equally astounded. 

_ “Nathanael?”  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally, an escape!!


	9. Raven, Raven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neil and Kevin reunited once more!

Neil broke into the comms room with Kevin on his heels, just to point at him and snap: “What the  _ fuck.” _

“What the fuck!” Kevin hissed, equally as aggravated. He pointed a well-bandaged hand to where Neil was standing, eyes scanning the rest of the Foxes. “Do you have any clue who he is?”

“I am Neil,” Neil said furiously. “I have been here, a rebel, a  _ róka,  _ for years.” He turned to Wymack.  _ “That  _ is your son?”

“He came to us in the middle of the night,” Dan said, standing up calmly. “Riko shot through his hand and left him to bleed out and die, the night that they took you.”

“Fantastic,” Neil ground out, curling his shaking hands into fists. “I can’t fucking believe you’re here. Two out of five Ravens, hiding on the front lines. Imagine Riko’s fury.”

“Two?” Kevin echoed, sounding too hopeful. “Jean?”

“Favouritism, Day,” came Andrew’s voice. Neil looked over his shoulder and felt an odd sweep of relief as he watched the man settle against the wall, arms crossed.

Kevin blinked at him. “I knew you would be able to distance yourself without help: Thea too. But it is Jean I’m most worried about.”

“He let us go,” Neil offered. “If it’s any consolation, I don’t think there’s a Raven left without a doubt in his cause. Besides: he seems to have found himself rather enamoured with a Trojan prisoner. Jeremy Knox.”

Kevin looked away, lip pulled between his teeth. “Right.” He held his injured hand to his chest. “Nath—” 

“That is  _ not _ my name,” Neil insisted, avoiding Andrew’s look of interest.

Kevin huffed. “Fine. Neil. You shouldn’t be alive. How did you survive? Where’s your mother?”

“You knew each other?” Wymack accused.

“We met when we were kids,” Neil bit out. “Our mothers were acquainted.”

Kevin flinched. The two of them were acquainted by necessity: when the Germans and their alliances with the Moriyama occupation approached Neil’s father, Kayleigh was there, indentured and miserable and attempting to raise a son. Mary was much the same.

“Those scars,” Kevin murmured. “Those are from him? Why?”

  
“You know why,” Neil snapped. He yanked up his sleeve to show off the numbers, pricked into his skin and unfading. His mother’s weak knife slashes couldn’t disfigure it beyond recognition. 

Dan, Wymack and Robin blinked at him, shocked. Abby’s face was schooled into neutrality: she already knew, obviously. So did Andrew.

“Is it that much of a marvel?” Neil growled, skin feverish. “I already told you, Kevin. Remember? We were ten years old, playing around. I showed you how to spell my name properly, and you said it sounded Jewish with your little nose scrunched up.”

  
“Then you vanished,” Kevin managed, voice hoarse.

“And now we’re here.”

“And Riko will be back,” Andrew said. “So if you two don’t get over yourselves, then everyone’s going to go up in smoke.”

“They surrendered,” Dan protested. “We won!”

Andrew scoffed. “You are deluded. Riko will come back with a pocket of his brother’s militia and destroy us. He would have never left the city if he didn’t have a retribution plan that’d bring you to your knees.”

“Fantastic,” Wymack snarled. “He gives the people hope and tears it away from their grasp just as they think it’s truly theirs.”

“He’s a good dictator,” Andrew drawled. “What did you expect?”

“Can he even function without his Ravens?” Renee asked. “Say he still has Jean and Thea. What then?”

Kevin hung his head, squeezing his eyes closed. “Then we are screwed.”

“Liberate the Ravens and Riko loses his cutting edge,” Neil suggested. “They run his operations. They are his security and support. Without the foundations the ideology will crumble: only then will we have a chance of eradicating Moriyama presence from Palmetto, and Columbia.”

“That’s the plan, then?” Wymack demanded. “Find Jean and Thea, bring them here before Riko has the chance to secure them. Then what?”

“Then we wait,” Kevin said, voice hoarse. “We can’t fight an enemy we don’t understand. Either Riko comes with the full force of his brother’s militia, or he returns empty handed to an empty nest. By God, you’d better pray for the second option.”

Wymack dismissed them all with a nod, but the air was sombre enough that Neil felt it coating the back of his throat.

Prayer would do them no good, Neil thought. It never did no good. He glanced at Andrew and knew that the man privately agreed. He caught Neil’s gaze and jerked his head, but Neil denied the invitation. He was sore and exhausted and finally home.

Andrew, understanding the tension in Neil’s shoulders, left without a word.

*

Neil gasped awake, remaining utterly still. Carefully, with one hand, he reached out to feel the ceiling of his cell. When he came away with nothing his stomach lurched and he sat up, remembering the contents of the previous day.

Relief ran down his spine in an all-consuming shudder and he curled in on himself, arms wrapped around his chest.

The door to Neil’s room opened. Abby and Wymack had donated their bed to him whilst he recovered, since Neil was unable to sleep in a room with so many bodies whilst his trauma was so raw. From the corridor a large figure stepped in, holding a handle up to his face as he closed the door behind him. In his other hand he held a mug of steaming tea.

“I’m fine, Matt,” Neil croaked.

The man hummed, sitting on the edge of Neil’s bed and passing over the black-leaf. All water had to be boiled to avoid contracting a water-spread disease, so it was easier to have everyone just drink black tea instead. It almost smothered the metallic taste. Neil took a shaking sip, holding it in his cold fingers as Matt patted him gently on the head.

“I’m glad you’re not dead,” he offered.

Neil nodded, then shrugged for good measure. “Turns out I’m difficult to kill.”

“As tenacious as a cockroach,” Matt laughed, sobering up quickly. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Neil’s gaze narrowed. “About what?”

“Anything.”

“What’s there to say?”

Matt cocked his head. “Neil, you were held prisoner. You brought the most volatile Raven to our side. For years you have hidden your true identity, and now your secrets are all out in the open. We are hiding in an underground bunker and you look like you’ve been torn to shreds. You cannot possibly be  _ fine.” _

“I am fine,” Neil insisted, voice hoarse. “You don’t know what it was like before I found you all. You accepted me and all my oddness and gave me a home, something that I had never had before. So long as I am here, I am fine.”

Matt huffed out a laugh and threw an arm around Neil’s shoulder. He couldn’t even complain about the pain that lanced down his sides, or the scalding hot tea he spilled onto his thigh. He was just glad to be back.

“I can’t believe you’re Jewish,” Matt shook his head. “You must be invincible.”

“If you don’t exist, you can’t die,” Neil pointed out. His friend simply snorted.

“What I don’t understand is how you won Andrew’s trust,” Matt mumbled. “You can’t possibly be  _ that  _ good of a lay: I’ve never seen you go out with anyone.”

“What?” Neil remarked.

“Nothing,” Matt grinned.

“I swore that I was telling him the truth,” Neil admitted. “He’d already seen the tattoo and all the scars. Maybe he thought I had nothing left to lose. It’s a bit hazy. He saved my life, you know.”

“I know,” Matt mumbled. “I just—I can’t see anything past the soullessness of his eyes. Joyless and destructive, Aaron once said. I know Dan’s not sold on keeping him around, and really, Neil, neither am I — ”

The door was pulled open slightly: When Andrew saw Matt sitting on the edge of Neil’s bed, he withdrew immediately, shutting the door as quickly as he’d opened it.

Neil sighed as Matt gave him a pointed look. “Shut up,” he grumbled, slowly ambling out of bed and pulling on one of Allison’s donated coats.

Andrew had been walking slowly on purpose, speeding up when he heard Neil leaving the dormitories to follow him. He went up the body chute, which was thankfully empty, and burst through the at the top, right into the frigid winter chill. He was dressed properly, whilst Neil hadn’t even had the chance to pull socks on before lacing his shoes.

Once outside he let Neil catch up to him. Side-by-side they walked to the Bastion, an old, white wall with two small towers at each corner and small alcoves hidden under the overpass. Andrew trod up the stairs and into one of the towers, stopping only when he’d arrived at the arched window.

  
The drop was dozens of metres, at least. It gave a brilliant view of the Den river and Metto, in all its ruined glory, the seven bridges, the stars shielded from the ugliness of human nature by a layer of smog.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Neil asked as Andrew lit a cigarette. Neil figured they were rationed, but Andrew had to have his own stash. The man passed one to Neil without question—he didn’t flinch away when their skin brushed—and Neil held it close to his jaw, breathing in the harsh wind and nicotine.

“The last time I was to sleep in a room full of bodies was Easthaven,” Andrew murmured, leaning his elbows on the sill of the archway, expression distant and unknowable. Neil stayed upright, leaning against the wall so he could look at Andrew properly as he smoked, cheeks hollowing with every inbreath, his lips pursed as he exhaled.

“Tell me,” Neil said, because hearing Andrew talk was still just as comforting, even when he wasn’t stuck in that forsaken cell, so sure he would die there alone.

Andrew’s gaze flitted sideways towards him, but he sighed anyway. “I moved from orphanage to orphanage as a child. When I thought that they would just turn me out onto the Metto streets, a woman took me in.”

“I thought I’d found a home,” he continued. “But her soldier son ruined that. He took advantage of me as a child because I was vulnerable and alone. I found out that Aaron and Nicky existed and so I left that woman’s home to live with Nicky and Aaron—destitute and abandoned by Nicky’s god-fearing parents and Aaron’s miserable mother—but I was recruited into the militia anyway. At that point the man had left, or perhaps died. I wasn’t sure. I simply trained and fed my family and weaned Aaron off opiates and found an apartment for Nicky to safely bring men home to.”

Neil’s cigarette had died out, but the warmth in his chest was fierce.

“Drake Spear appeared on our doorstep,” Andrew said, completely devoid of any emotion or tone. “He tried to take advantage of me again, but Aaron crushed his skull in with a broomstick. We agreed that I should take the blame, as Aaron was just commencing his training at St John’s. They decided I was too volatile, and sent me to Easthaven for reformation.”

Andrew frowned, staring at his hands. Neil shifted a little closer.

“Easthaven takes spurned men and creates machines,” he said. “We were all young and impressionable and subjected to...various tortures. I didn’t think that any of it had stuck: I thought I was too removed to be influenced by their brain-washing bullshit. I put up with their regimes and their antics and murdered a doctor for laying a hand on me, but it wasn’t hard to hide one death amongst dozens. Then Riko appeared, with burnt remnants of my cousin and my brother, and I thought I had failed them.” He looked to Neil, and Neil thought that there was a whole world in each of his eyes. It was criminal that no one had yet to explore that.

“You didn’t,” Neil said, voice quiet. “You’re here now.”

“In a burning city, perhaps on the cusp of war,” Andrew agreed. “Too little, too late. I’m not the man I once was, and that man was a frightened and lonely boy. All they see is what I have done.”

“Because you refuse to reveal this part of you,” Neil murmured. “The man who would do anything for his family. All you show them is someone who left and chose not to come back.”

“I am more machine than man,” Andrew muttered. “It’s better that way.”

“For them, or for you?”

Andrew glared at him. Neil smiled, a vague thing of up-turned lip corners, and nestled the cherries of their cigarettes together once more as Andrew held his lighter up. Like this, their foreheads could brush if one of them leaned a little closer, arching their neck just slightly towards the sky.

But then Neil’s cigarette was lit and Andrew had yanked himself back into the opposing wall, the space between them cold and frigid.

"Your turn," Andrew mumbled, eyes hooded.

Neil cocked his head to the side. "What do you want to know?"

"How do you know Kevin? And why is he so terrified of you?"

Terrified? Kevin couldn't be terrified of Neil. He had always been superior, with his pale skin and his brilliant military career and his once-bright future. Something Neil had never had, and used to think he wanted.

"You can't be serious," Neil muttered, lips twisted into something of a sneer. “He almost got me killed. He couldn’t possibly be terrified of me.”

“Something about your father,” Andrew supplied. “You’ve already told me he’s responsible for your scars.”

Neil stilled. He tried not to focus on the likes of Nathan Wesninski, not when he had unduly caused Neil years of suffering. His mother was dead by his hand, and now that he, too, was dead, Neil just wanted to leave him in the past. It seemed as though he had clawed his way out of his grave, his chokehold on Neil strong as ever even from the afterlife. The mere mention of his father was enough to send dread down his spine.

“A Polish scientist,” Neil said, blinking away his father’s image from in front of his eyes. “He experimented with pain and human suffering. They executed him in post-war trials.”

Andrew hummed. “What was his name?”

Neil curled his shaking hands in the sleeves of his borrowed jacket. “Nathan,” he choked out.

The man opposite him cocked his head. “That is not your Jewish name.”

“It’s not,” Neil agreed. “It’s Nathanael. But he anglicised the vowels. He called me -”  _ Junior. My biggest disappointment. Where’s your mother, my biggest mistake? _ “Nathaniel.”

“Too much of a mouthful,” Andrew muttered. “Stick with Neil.”

Despite the chill of the night, Neil laughed. It felt warm in his chest.

*

_ 2nd of November, 1956 _

Two days after Neil’s escape, he found himself at dinner.

If he’d thought before that the group was eclectic, it was nothing on what the  _ róka  _ looked like now, all crowded around a small wooden table laden with soups and stale bread. Neil’s return had truly buoyed everyone’s spirits, and Dan had even let up on the fruit rations, seeing as it was Neil’s favourite food. He was encouraged by Abby to eat the last of their citrus fruits, two small oranges and a clementine, as they were good for healing. His appetite wasn’t quite as stable as it’d once been, but he was getting better. He could feel it.

After Andrew had warned Kevin with a knife to his gut about hurting Aaron again (Kevin had awoken in the bunker disoriented and terrified, his crippled hand bandaged after surgery. Aaron had been his attending doctor, and in the darkness and the chaos, Kevin’s instinct had been to grab the first sharp thing he could find — a scalpel — and shove it into Aaron’s stomach) everything seemed to work out smoothly. Andrew ignored a very pregnant Katelyn, keeping tabs on Neil, Kevin, his brother and his cousin and pretty much nothing else. Wymack and Betsy both spoke to him, and Neil could tell they were getting somewhere. What they were discussing was entirely a mystery.

Allison, Dan and Matt were making up for lost time with Neil and bundled up next to him. Renee did too, but she spent more time alone with Andrew than anyone else. Neil knew of Renee’s past and her role as an espionage agent, but it’d never occurred to Neil that they might have known each other prior to Andrew’s lengthy vacation to Easthaven.

  
At dinner, Renee made an effort to breach the strange gap between the two halves as much as Neil did. Tonight she was helping Abby with the food, ladelling out hot soup and passing around bread loaves.

“I’m sorry that I can’t assure you it’s kosher,” she said, handing Neil his bowl.

Everyone stilled slightly, looking at him. Neil himself hadn’t — well, he hadn’t had the time nor energy to think about it. He lacked faith in humanity, and faith in a higher power with all that he had seen and endured, but it was still a culture he had been raised with. It was still his identity. He supposed he didn’t like to bring it to the forefront of his mind, because with it was the aching grief that accompanied the thoughts of his mother and her lonely, violent death.

“That’s okay,” he mumbled, pulling the bowl close to his chest. “It’s not — it’s not always viable. In rationed periods.”

“Still,” Renee soothed, squeezing his shoulder.

“At least pork is too expensive,” he joked, bringing the soup to his lips. It was salted beef, potato and leek, probably carrot too. Renee was a good cook. She smiled at him and Allison rubbed his hair, pulling Renee into her side.

Andrew was watching him. Neil was growing more used to it, the weight of Andrew’s gaze. It usually just meant that Neil had caught his attention, or that Andrew wanted to ask about something Neil had done or said.

“In other good news,” Abby said, sitting by her husband. “St Johns has reopened to a functional level and a supply chain has been reestablished.”

“That  _ is  _ good news,” Dan agreed.

Neil let their conversation of perseverance and rebuilding wash over him, dipping his bread into the bowl and chewing slowly, carefully.

Maybe when all this was over, he could go somewhere where Judaism wasn’t persecuted or discriminated against. His uncle seemed to be existing fine in the UK. Perhaps the United States could be his new start. Or down south, in Australia or New Zealand. Wherever he went, he wanted to leave the death and destruction of war behind him. He wanted a life without the chains of his dead parents or the lengths he went to for survival or how he overcame hardships. He wanted to leave that buried in Palmetto with Nathaniel, Nathanael and all the ghosts of people he had pretended to be between them.

If that meant seeing the revolution of Columbia through, then so be it.


	10. Vixen Square

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's a surgery scene after a fight scene, just a warning :))

“Fine,” Abby conceded, washing her hands pink in her little sink. “I permit you to help out in the hospital. But I can’t take out the stitches for another few days: Pull any and I’ll put you back on bedrest.”

Neil stood and stretched till she swatted his shoulder and reminded him of what she had  _ just said, Neil,  _ letting him dress and leave her little examinatory office. As soon as he placed a foot outside her door, a hand wrapped around his arm and pulled him to the left.

“Andrew,” Neil remarked, letting himself be pulled along by the man. “What is it?”

“Would it kill you to stop asking idiotic questions?” Andrew demanded, marching down the supply movement corridor and cutting back to the main strip. He avoided the ambulant entrance in favour of the mortuary hatch, giving Neil not a moment to catch his breath as they clambered out of the hatch at the top. The morning sun was bright and cut through the overcast sky, meaning the ground was more ripe with the stench of death than usual. Someone hadn’t properly covered the newer gravesites.

An unfamiliar figure stood under the lip of the Bastion cliff, hood drawn up over their hair and scarf over their mouth. They were tapping their foot impatiently, spinning something that looked more and more like a knife as Neil drew closer. Neil fiddled with the sleeve of his shirt, staying close to Andrew’s shoulder.

“Who is that?” the person — a woman — demanded.

“The prisoner I helped escape,” Andrew responded. “Thea, this is Neil. Neil, this is Number Four.”

“Is it true?” Thea demanded, pulling the scarf down her face and stepping closer with the knife grasped in a tight fist. She had 四 _(_ _shi)_ tattooed on her cheek. “Kevin is alive?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Andrew growled. “What do you want, Four?”

“Oh,” she whispered, her shoulders slumping. “God- _ dammit,  _ Kevin. Why wouldn’t he tell me?”

“Because then Riko would know his second in command has betrayed him.”

“He is furious,” Riko’s spy murmured. “He returned last night, and strangled answers out of Jean. I feared he wouldn’t wake, but he has. He’s in bad form, Five.”

“As if I care.”

“You mightn’t, but Kevin will. He left us behind,” her voice shook. “The least he could do is hold out his hand.”

“He is terrified and almost lost his hand. He will do no such thing for a comrade.”

“Good thing we’re his lovers, then,” Thea groused. “Fucking bastard. He proposes to me and vanishes!”

“This sounds less like a special operations team and more like a soap opera,” Neil muttered.

“Tell me about it,” Andrew grunted. “Is that all you wanted, Four? If so, get out of my fucking sight and stay off Pal.”

“He knows about you,” Thea said, looking to Neil. “He uncovered your true identity whilst with his brother. You know you were meant to wear this number?” She pointed to her cheek. “You were to be the knife up his sleeve, and I his whore. But your father lied about your lineage, and Kengo rejected you when he discovered the truth. He ordered your father to kill you.”

_ But we ran, instead _ , Neil deduced, horrified. “You’re lying.”

“What good does lying do?” Thea demanded. “He’s called for you. Both of you. A parley, in Vixen square at midnight. He will lay down terms that may spare your rebellion a lot of pain.”

“You’re on the wrong side,” Andrew said.

“I know.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “But it is the only side I’ve ever known.”

With that, she vanished.

*

Dan’s motorcycle was dusty and needed a good kick to the gusset before it got going. Dan herself was watching the two of them from the corner of the room, arms crossed and gaze hooded.

“That’s all the gas we have?” Neil hedged, rattling the container.

“That’s all we can spare,” Dan admonished, stalking forward. “This seems like an unnecessary expedition. Especially at this time of night.”

“Aaron’s injured,” Neil lied. “Andrew can case St Johns without suspicion. See if Evermore has laid any traps. We need the facilities, Dan.”

“And you need your rest.”

Neil bristled. “I won’t do  _ nothing.  _ Not whilst you’re all readying for reclaiming _.” _

Andrew appeared at his side, fingers twitching with impatience. Neil let their fingertips brush.

“We should go,” he deduced, watching Andrew swing himself onto the bike.

“Be careful,” Dan insisted. “Matt’s going to kill me when he discovers I let you do this.”

“We’ll be fine,” Neil insisted, throat clogged with anxiety.

“Famous last words,” she said dryly. Andrew huffed in agreement.

Neil let his hands balance on Andrew’s shoulders when the man nodded in affirmation. He slipped his leg over the back of the seat and settled in close. Andrew steered the bike away from the curb and directed them down Pal hill, to the Chain bridge.

The wind bit at Neil’s skin, so he grasped at Andrew’s waist as gently as he could and hid his face behind Andrew’s shoulder. He thought he could feel Andrew’s heartbeat through where his cheek was pressed against his shoulder blade, but it was too fast to be Andrew’s. Perhaps it was his own.

They sped through the dead streets, past Perimeter Square and down Perimeter Avenue. They had to careen around the Evermore Headquarters via the ghetto streets, of which Neil directed Andrew through. The remnants of the wall that’d enforced segregation still stuck out of buildings and crumbled over pathways, the project haphazardly destroyed in the post-war frenzy. When they’d made it back to Perimeter Avenue, they were at Vixen Square. Neil’s fingers tightened in Andrew’s jacket as they drew to a stop.

“Does he know you keep knives in your sleeves?” Neil inquired, checking the pistol in his boot.

“No one should know that,” Andrew muttered. He tugged on Neil’s collar. “Come on.”

The square was dark. Trees lined brick paths, battered and cracked an overrun with weeds. In the centre of the park was an open circle, connecting all four of the square’s entrances. Neil spotted three figures standing opposite them as they approached, one a little closer than the rest. As Neil’s eyes adjusted to the dark, he almost winced: Jean Moreau’s hair was covered with a hat, his coat buttoned up to his chin, but it couldn’t hide the mottled blacks and blues across his face.

It was only a few days ago he had aimed that gun at Andrew. Not for the first time Neil wondered why he would risk himself in such a situation. A younger version of himself would have booked it as soon as he’d seen the sunlight breaking across the horizon. Instead here he was, risking his life because standing by Andrew’s side had somehow become more important than leaving him behind.

“Nathaniel, Nathaniel, Nathaniel,” Riko crooned, thumbs hooked in the pockets of his jacket. “Just  _ what  _ do you think you’re doing?”

“The right thing,” Neil insisted. “And if you’re going to use the wrong name, at least say it right.”

“Surprised you’ve got a voice after all that,” the man remarked. “He truly shrieked when I twisted the knife, didn’t he, Five?”   
  


Andrew said nothing.  


“What do you want, Moriyama?” Neil demanded. “You surrendered to the  _ róka. _ You should pull the remnants of your shitty regime and scurry back to hiding in your brother’s shadow.”

Riko’s eye twitched. “I wouldn’t speak so soon,  _ Neil.”  _ He marched closer, hands behind his back. “It just so happens that my brother wants to hold onto Palmetto. It’s a valuable stronghold, afterall. Well placed, built with sufficient infrastructure. Once we get rid of your pathetic rebel force, it will be a clean slate.” Riko smiled like a wolf, hackles raised and teeth pointed with the anticipation of a meal. “I have cargo planes brimming with bombs to raze your little mountain to rubble. Around the borders of Pal hill that you had so defiantly defended I will have tanks and horses and men armed to the teeth. No one in that bunker will survive.”

“I don’t believe you,” Neil shot back.

Riko simply shrugged. “Live in denial, then. You have a week till they arrive. Unless you wish to prevent the eradication of all your little friends.” He looked at Andrew with thinly-veiled disgust. “Perhaps the term  _ relations  _ would be more appropriate.”

“Fuck you,” Neil snarled, vicious.

The man smiled, victorious. “You can stop it, Neil. If you come with me and bring Kevin, I will leave Palmetto alone.”

Andrew stepped forward. “Absolutely not.”

“You’re not of importance anymore, Five,” Riko sneered. “You don’t deserve that name. Ran back to your degenerate family as soon as you heard they were alive, didn’t you? What did they ever do for you but relegate you to the asylum?”

Andrew was utterly unmoved. Riko just grinned.

“I forget that you cannot understand normal human emotions, Minyard. They really messed with what little brain you were clinging onto, didn’t they?”

“Fuck  _ off _ , Riko,” Neil snapped.

“He’s not going with you,” Andrew said calmly. “Neither is Kevin. Leave.”

His raven-feather eyes sparkled as he laughed, a borderline hysterical cackle. “You didn’t think I’d let you leave this with the knowledge of my timeline, did you?” He unsheathed a knife from his belt. “I will enjoy distributing your corpse, Minyard. You’ve caused me enough trouble. As for little Nathaniel,” Riko cocked his head. “I wonder how long you’d last, second time in the slammer.”

Neil reached for the gun in his boot but he wasn’t quick enough: with a flick of his wrist, Riko flung his knife at Neil. It would’ve buried itself in Neil’s stomach if Andrew wasn’t there to shove him out of the way, the knife arching across his side instead. Something in Neil’s chest flipped erratically, hands shaking as he watched Andrew fall.

From his boot he snatched the pistol, already loaded: with the safety off, he aimed. He wanted a bullet between Riko's brows. He wanted to watch his internal organs splatter across the brick. Andrew being wounded was Neil’s last straw, and he hadn’t had many to begin with.

He had a three-shot cannister and fired all of them at Riko’s chest. He was sure that one of them landed, if Riko’s gurgled yell was anything to go by, but by the time the anger had dissipated, the trio were gone. Riko was nowhere to be seen, and the only blood on the brick was Andrew’s.

_ Andrew. _

Neil knelt beside him where he was curled inwards on himself, still breathing but visibly pale.

“No,” he mumbled, fingers fretting. “ _ No. _ You’re fine.”

“Shut up,” Andrew grunted, clutching onto Neil’s arm. He slowly pulled himself upright, raising his gaze to meet Neil’s. He’d lost all his colouring. “Are you going to do anything or just stand there and keep looking at me like that?”

“How bad is it?” Neil demanded, letting Andrew use him as a crutch as they hobbled back to Dan’s motorcycle.

Andrew didn’t reply, breathing heavily in and out of his nose. Neil felt his fingers dig into his shoulder blades as he slid onto the bike first, Andrew falling behind him. It’d been a while since he had last ridden a motorcycle but it didn’t matter: he had Andrew’s arms around his waist, attempting to keep him from falling off the bike as they sped back the way they came, over the bridge and past the hill to where St Johns stood, gloomy and neglected with a lack of activity from its large arched windows.

Andrew’s head lolled across Neil’s shoulders. Gritting his teeth, Neil skidded to a stop outside St John's hospital and balanced it as quick as he could before clambering off and steadying Andrew’s shoulders.

“Andrew,” Neil insisted. “Andrew, I’m going to help you inside.”

“Fuck off,” he muttered, using Neil’s shoulders to haul himself upright. He was losing a lot of blood.  _ Fuck,  _ Neil thought. Why did those he cared for get themselves into trouble on his behalf?

_ Those he cared for? _

“Only a little further,” he panted, lugging Andrew’s near dead-weight towards the doors. They were locked, so he smashed the glass with the butt of his pistol and fiddled with the lock from the inside. It was dreary inside the hospital but the emergency wards were on the ground floor, allowing them to avoid the dastardly staircase.

The hum of electricity was too quiet under the rush of blood in Neil’s ears as he switched on the lights in a surgical suite, helping Andrew a top of the bench. The furrowed brow and sweat on Andrew’s temple was the only evidence that he was in more pain than he’d let Neil believe, so he ran the tap and placed a wet cloth across Andrew’s forehead.

“I need to cut open your jacket and shirt,” Neil said. Andrew just grunted, squeezing his eyes shut. Neil found the surgical scissors and tore away the bloodied fabric, his heart skipping at the sight. It wasn’t deep but it sliced from his stomach around his waist, a jagged line that Neil would have to stitch shut from the inside out.

“We only have rubbing alcohol,” Neil whispered. “This is going to hurt, Andrew.”

“I’ve been through worse,” the man grunted, snatching the bottle out of Neil’s hand and taking a swig. He coughed, nearly spitting it up all over himself, before taking the towel on his forehead and shoving it into his mouth to bite down on.

Neil laced his needle as his fingers shook, keeping the pressure on his wound the best that he could manage. Everything he doused with the alcohol in hopes of keeping it clean: even if Andrew managed to survive this, infection would rip his soul away not a few days later. With Andrew clutching onto the table for dear life, Neil bent over and commenced his work.

It was gruelling and messy and Neil had never thought he would be the type to falter under duress. For some reason Andrew was different. Neil couldn’t let him die. He owed Andrew his life. He  _ trusted  _ the man. He couldn’t fathom continuing without him. Having Andrew by his side had become more comforting than not having him, but Neil had no clue when that’d changed. He supposed it didn’t matter if Andrew died, but Neil still wanted him to know that it was different. He just wasn’t quite sure how to say it.

Andrew’s breathing had slowed by the last stitch, to the point that Neil thought he’d passed out. With trembling fingers he took the cloth out from between his clenched teeth, bloody fingertips hesitant to brush over the man’s cheek.

“Andrew,” he whispered. “Are you alright?”

Neil almost choked on the relief that surged up when Andrew grunted, head lolling around.

“Okay,” he said, dragging over a chair. Exhaustion shook him to his very core as he slumped onto it “Okay.”

Andrew’s hand — skin as pale as snow — reached out to brush Neil’s hair away from his forehead.

“Pipedream,” he murmured.

Neil put his head down on the surgical bench, Andrew’s hand still warm in his hair.

Together, they closed their eyes.


	11. St Johns Hospital

_5th of November, 1956_

Neil awoke to the raucous sounds of infiltration.

Having lived the life he’d lived, he immediately stood up, his gun out and ready. At his unfamiliar surroundings, he blinked: the tall, arched windows and stainless steel surgical benches were not present in his usual bunker bedroom, and neither was the blonde man lying before him.

“Neil!” Dan crowed, bursting into the room. “Thank God you’re alive!” She smothered him in an overbearing hug, gun in one hand and desperation in the other. “When you didn’t come back from the St Johns reconnaissance mission, I thought—” she choked on a desperate inhale.

St Johns. Recon mission. Riko. Vixen Square. Andrew. _Andrew._

Neil freed himself from her grasp to whirl on his comatose patient, fingers digging into his pulse. When he was sure that Andrew was still stable, he sighed with relief, and let Dan rewind her arm around his shoulders.

“What the hell happened?” she demanded.

“We met Riko,” he said, leaning into her side. “He gave us an ultimatum: me and Kevin for Palmetto’s freedom. Andrew didn’t let me go and was stabbed for his efforts.”

“He’ll be okay,” Dan insisted, holding Neil tighter. “And the hospital? Is it safe?”

“I mightn’t have been very thorough,” Neil admitted, still entranced by the hollowness of Andrew’s cheeks. “But no one came for us after I fell asleep.”

“We’ll reclaim it and set up the medicinal facilities,” Dan smiled, prim and determined. “We _will_ win this, you know.”

Neil hoped so.

Dan vanished to rally whoever she had brought as company, so Neil worked on easing Andrew awake. Just as he thought his efforts were futile and began planning to grab a stretcher, Andrew shifted.

“Andrew,” Neil said. “Andrew, it’s me.”

His eyes snapped open, looking immediately to where Neil stood.

“You’re going to be okay,” Neil promised. He held up his hand. “Can I hold your shoulder?”

Andrew’s tiny nod was all he could manage: Neil gripped his bloodied shirt and expelled a deep sigh of relief.

“I’m going to find medication,” Neil said. “Then I’ll try to get you into a wheelchair. The others will be coming in soon and St Johns has more private bays further back. Okay?”

Ten minutes later, Neil was sterilising a needle in a boiling pot of water, unscrewing a vial of morphine that he’d sourced from a locked cupboard, somehow untouched in the raids. Opiates were always the first things to vanish when a hospital was infiltrated.

“It’s diluted opiates,” Neil promised. “It’s not instantaneously addictive, and it won’t make you fall asleep.”

“Okay,” Andrew mumbled, voice hoarse. It was better after he’d had something to drink. Neil would’ve much preferred him to be warm, comfortable and clean, but at least there was running water. “I trust you.”

“Wow,” came a new voice, after Neil administered the opiates. “Who’s humanising who in that relationship?”

Andrew glared daggers towards the door as his cousin stepped through, Renee by his side. The girl smiled brilliantly, hooking her arm through Nicky’s. At Neil’s glare Nicky’s grin went a little sheepish.

“Just saying,” he said. “Can I help?”

“Wheelchair or stretcher,” Neil said. “I’m going to move him into a private ward. One that doesn’t have its windows busted out, preferably.”

“On it!” the man winked and left before Andrew could heave himself upright to shoo him off himself.

Renee brushed Andrew’s hair out of his eyes, gently shaking her head. “You were always capable of more than you thought you were.”

Andrew just closed his eyes. Distantly, Neil felt a strange pain in his chest. He knew that Renee had Allison, but it was so intimate and kind and _gentle._ Neil couldn’t watch.

Nicky interrupted the strange moment with his usual enthusiasm, and the three of them set to work at helping Andrew up. The man was quiet and still, the pain-killers having taken effect, but his mobility was severely limited. Neil pushed the wheelchair as Nicky chatted amicably, his spirits buoyed by the reclamation of the hospital. Renee walked slightly ahead, clearing a path through the debris and chaos for Andrew’s chair.

“And just as I thought I had a way to tell you two apart, you get yourself in a wheelchair too!” Nicky laughed. “Aaron would be in hysterics. Or, as hysterical as he can be. I think the first time I saw him smile was when Katelyn told us all she was pregnant. We’re thinking it could be twins, Andrew. Isn’t that just something?”

Andrew hummed, head drooping slightly. Neil held onto his shoulder to keep him upright, hurrying a little more to get him lying down again. He hoped the stitches held.

“Okay,” Renee said, gently taking Andrew’s arm. “Up on three. One, two—”

Neil let his hand linger a little too long after lying Andrew down on his bed. The man’s eyes blinked open as he looked up to Neil, then to Renee and his cousin. He let out a feeble sigh and mumbled, “Fuck off.”

“He’ll be fine,” Nicky laughed. “Shall we go tell the others?”

“I’ll stay,” Neil blurted. “Look after him.”

“Didn’t realise you were such a doctor,” Renee said warmly. Neil shrugged. He’d worked with Abby enough to know what he was doing, and he’d survived long enough both with and without his mother during the war. He was passably competent at most things.

After they both left, Neil set to cleaning the small working station under the broad, arched window. He assumed Andrew had gone to sleep, till the man spoke.

“Why were you looking at Renee like that?”

Neil stilled, glancing over his shoulder. “I wasn’t looking at her like anything.”

“You were. It looked like jealousy.” he sighed. “You have no reason to be jealous.”

The drugs were loosening Andrew’s tongue more than the man probably wanted. Neil filled a glass of water and turned around, coming to stand by Andrew’s bedside.

“Why not?” Neil inquired, entertaining Andrew’s strange tangent.

“Because,” the man said, closing his eyes. “I have no interest in Renee. But I’d bed you.”

“You’d— _what?”_ Neil nearly dropped the glass. “You like me?”

“I hate you,” Andrew corrected. “Now, go away.”

“There’s water by your bed,” Neil said weakly, doing as instructed. There were no doors on the private wards, just yellowed paper curtains, so Neil stood guard outside the archway as Andrew drifted off to sleep. When Andrew’s breathing evened out, Neil collapsed against the wall and slid to the floor.

His memory taunted him. What had Andrew said, whilst they were trapped underneath Evermore’s headquarters?

_“Why won’t you look at me?” Neil inquired. “Am I truly that hideous?”_

_Andrew glanced at him, saw that he was dressed, then looked back to the door. “I have seen worse.”_

_“You have inflicted worse.”_

_“It seems that you might’ve too.”_

_“We all do what we have to survive, don’t we?”_

_  
_ _Andrew stood up from the stool, shaking out a cigarette. “And there’s your answer.”_

Now that Neil had this information at his disposal, he wasn’t quite sure what he thought. It was something only time had the answer to. Neil’s biggest priority was ensuring that Andrew remained alive. Romantic foreys could be discussed another time, couldn’t they?

It was then that Neil involuntarily remembered cycling, just over a week ago, away from the Evermore headquarters, Andrew’s hand steadying the small of his back. Those moments where they shared the quiet of the Bastion, or even a few hours ago, riding on Dan’s motorcycle with his arms around Andrew’s waist. Their circumstances, especially in how they met, were less than ideal, but Neil had never leaned so heavily on one person before. He had never felt such security, such solidarity. For so long he’d wondered what that meant. Was it just the Foxes, softening him? Or was it something else?

His head hurt. He didn’t want to think about it. He wanted to reclaim Palmetto and win: he wanted freedom and safety and a pain-free future. He wanted a bed to sleep in and a roof to sleep under. Whether or not he shared that bed was unimportant, as was whoever he shared it with.

A chill ran down his spine. For a moment he was tempted to sleep by Andrew, who radiated warmth and comfort. Not wanting to disobey Andrew’s demands, Neil stayed right where he was, and tried not to think about how it felt so right to have Andrew’s skin against his.

It didn’t really work.

*

_6th of November, 1956_

Neil arrived at the bunker early in the morning.

He had promised himself that he would stay by Andrew’s side, but then Abby and (a now more mobile) Aaron had appeared and insisted that Dan wanted Neil at the meeting. Andrew was still asleep and Neil wanted to wake him to assure him he was coming back, but Aaron forced him into a coat and scarf and out the door.

Everyone was gathered in the comms room and looked to Neil when he skidded to a stop.

“Welcome,” Dan said, smiling. She and Wymack stood over a map of Palmetto, the different borders of Pal and Metto traced in red and orange. “We were only just starting, Neil.”

“I have bad news,” Neil said, remaining standing. “Riko will be here in five days. 11th of November: he will reclaim the city.” Unless he and Kevin gave themselves over. He looked briefly to the ex-Raven, who was glaring at the table, his bandaged hand twitching and his skin a ghostly green.

Neil would’ve happily given himself up, but Kevin didn’t deserve that. Kevin didn’t need to know what was on the line. Dan gave him a shrewd look at omitting those specific details, but Neil had already made his mind.

“We missed you, little spy,” Matt laughed. “You pull information out of thin air.”

Neil just shrugged.

“Fine,” Dan said, looking back to the map. “So we have five days. We’ll secure Metto and the course to St Johns, and restrict bridge access. Lace explosives but use them as a last resort. We should attempt to evacuate high-risk peoples, including all of the Jewish ghetto in Pal and the schools. We are going to get this all done,” Dan insisted, looking at each of her crew. “And we are going to do it right. For Palmetto.”

“For freedom,” Wymack added.

“ _Róka!”_ Nicky crowed, and everyone echoed his cheer.

Neil, despite being the ever quiet observationalist, couldn’t help but join in.

*

_7th of November, 1956_

“You could leave too, you know,” Matt said.

They were just walking out of the synagogue, or what was left of it. It’d never been properly rebuilt after the second world war, seeing as Evermore had immediately occupied and continued their antisemitic and institutionalist regime. Neil had felt somewhat exposed, talking to the young children that he felt so much affinity towards, their parents who saw the tattoo on Neil’s arm and bore their own.

_What’s your name?_ they’d asked.

_Nathanael Abram,_ he didn’t say. Instead, he said _Neil._ They seemed to understand.

“I can’t,” he said.

“It’s not safe for you,” Matt objected.

“It’s not safe for anyone,” Neil returned. “I’ve been with you all since the beginning of the _róka._ How could I possibly up and leave now?”

“You’ve done enough.” Matt slung his arm around Neil’s shoulders as they turned into a narrow alleyway, a shortcut to go back home. “Just know that you’ve done enough, alright?”

Neil just hummed.

*

_8th of November, 1956_

“Andrew’s asking after you,” Aaron muttered under his breath, lest his cousin overhear and make a debacle about it.

Neil looked at him. “Really?”

Aaron rolled his eyes. “Well, he claims that he hates you and wishes that it were you he shot at instead, but we both know that means he wants to talk to you. For what reason I couldn’t possibly fathom. You are the last person I’d want to talk to.”

“Go annoy your wife,” Neil said, a strange warmth born out of familiarity blossoming. He and Aaron had never really gotten along, but their antagonism had taken on a different element ever since they’d found something in common: Andrew. “Lord knows I’m not sticking around for when she pops out two more of you. One’s enough.”

“Technically there’s two of us,” Aaron muttered as Neil jogged off. “But you don’t seem to mind _him_ very much.”

Neil simply flipped him off.

*

_9th of November, 1956_

“He’s on quarter doses of ibuprofen now, but most of the time he refuses them,” Abby explained, looking at her charts. She was still keeping track of the few long-term patients that’d scraped by death in the riots, keeping her as busy as ever. With all that to contend with, she didn’t really need an obstinate Andrew added to that list.

It was well overdue for Neil to return to St Johns and help her anyway.

“It’s not enough, mind you, but he refused anything stronger.” she continued. “And these are anti-inflammatories, not opiates.” 

He nodded in thanks as she passed him Andrew’s statistics. For a moment he hesitated by the curtain that separated Andrew’s alcove from the hallway, but knew he was being ridiculous so he stepped through before he could turn around and leave.

“And so he returns from the living,” Andrew drawled.

Neil fought a smile. “You shouldn’t be sitting up.” The man had his shirt shucked off to one side, the bandaged around his middle thankfully clean. He was wearing a different pair of trousers and his hair was still damp from a shower that Aaron would’ve helped him with.

The sunlight from the large, arched window of Andrew’s little room swathed him in a golden glow. Neil had to look away, placing his charts on the little station opposite Andrew’s bed and fumbling with bottles of medications.

“You’re not a doctor,” Andrew said. There was no question in his tone, but it certainly laid under his words.

“No,” Neil agreed.

“But you sewed me up and assisted my brother and the nurse in their duties.”

“I’m not sure if you’ve noticed,” Neil said wryly, glancing over his shoulder. “We are rather understaffed.”

Andrew shifted on his bench: Neil turned around to make sure he wasn’t doing something ridiculous, but his eyes caught on the man’s broad shoulders as he leaned back on his hands. Something about his gaze was shadowed and intriguing. Neil didn’t understand this ailment he was suddenly afflicted with: a racing heart, quickened breath, shaking hands. It was almost as though he were panicked, but he didn’t want to leave.

“You should be lying down,” Neil said, breaching the small distance between them. “I’m no doctor but I know what I’m talking about.”

“You talk an awful lot,” the man responded. “That doesn’t mean what you’re saying makes any sense.”

“You make me lose sense,” Neil blurted out, his tongue heavy with the words. He didn’t know what that meant, just that it was right. Everything about Andrew felt _right._ “Andrew, what you said a few nights ago—” Something in Andrew’s gaze darkened. “I just — maybe it’s not as immoral as people say, but it’s arbitrary. And yet I wouldn’t…” Neil’s skin burned. “I wouldn’t say _no.”_

“That is not a yes,” Andrew murmured.

“I would say yes,” Neil whispered. When had they become so close? “I _am_ saying yes.”

For someone armed to the teeth, both physically and mentally, Andrew Minyard kissed like a silk ribbon. A gentle caress of a kiss brushed over Neil’s lips, his fingertips curling under Neil’s ear. It was warm and soft and a little off-centred but it sent a shiver down Neil’s spine. He had never understood the impulse for physical intimacy before. Not till now.

A moment later Andrew drew back, pulling the air out of Neil’s lungs as he went. “Don’t touch,” he said. When Neil nodded, he took Neil’s jaw and kissed him again, fervent and intense.

It couldn’t have been comfortable for him, sitting upright with stitches in his stomach and his skin bared to the November air. Neil thought that perhaps his neck would cramp and twinge from the position, his wrists aching from being stuffed deep into his pockets. But none of it mattered. They remained like that for days, perhaps months.

Only when Andrew winced did Neil pull back.

“Your next dose,” he insisted, voice hoarse. His fingers trembled as he shook out the pills, dumping them into Andrew’s hand. The man threw them back easily, shaking them down with a gulp of water.

“You’ll fall asleep soon,” Neil said. “Do you want me to—”

“Stay,” Andrew insisted, laying down with his back against the wall. There was only just enough room for Neil to lay down next to him on his back, looking up to the ceiling.

“I’ll keep you safe,” Neil whispered, watching as Andrew fought against the drooping eyelids.

“I don’t need you,” the man returned.

Neil shrugged. “You have me anyway.”

“Pipedream,” he mumbled, dropping off into slumber.

It made more sense to Neil now, but not by much. With the memory of Andrew’s lips against his skin, he relaxed.

He’d never felt certainty before. It was disarming in a dangerous, disquieting way. 

And yet, he found that he quite liked it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YEET


	12. The Final Stand

_ 10th of November, 1956 _

“I’m driving,” Neil insisted, and received a glare for his efforts. He smiled wanly. “Need I remind you that you’re recovering?”

“I hate you,” Andrew muttered, sliding onto Dan’s motorcycle behind Neil. His arms wound around Neil’s waist, pulling Neil back slightly to tuck against Andrew’s torso. Under his breath Neil laughed, kicking the motorcycle off.

The sun had set: tomorrow was the day of retribution, as the others were calling it. Neil wasn’t risking it and wanted Andrew in the bunker, to which he’d actually complied.

“ _ How do you get him to do as you say?” Matt demanded. “He wouldn’t even listen to Nicky’s wheedling.” _

_ “I ask,” Neil responded. _

Under the golden glow of the gas lamps, Neil careened up Metto hill till they arrived at the ambulance entrance. They left Dan’s bike at the door, knowing the woman was going out for a reconnaissance mission, and hurried inside to get out of the cold.

Spirits were oddly high.

Two fingers hooked into the belt of Neil’s coat and tugged: Neil looked at Andrew and smiled. Slowly, his hand reached out to pull up the collar of his sweater to conceal a rather incriminating purple mark: Neil had spent the day blissfully ignoring their less than ideal situation in favour of letting Andrew explore, and exploring Andrew in return.

It was years of exposure to Nicky and Erik, and Allison and Renee, that granted Neil peace of mind. He had never been one to conform socially, but one truly had to evaluate one’s sanity when they started kissing those of their own gender, especially when one had never really desired anything like it before.

To that, Neil decided to say  _ fuck it.  _ Who cared if the person he wanted to hold and cherish was also a man? They had more pressing things to worry about.

“Andrew!” Nicky crowed. “Good to see you up! Should you really be walking around? Aaron was in a wheelchair for nearly two weeks!”

“Try and put me in a wheelchair and I will ensure that you need said wheelchair permanently,” Andrew returned. His cousin just snorted.

“Come on, you old grouch. We’ve got coffee, strats and plans. Neil, you’re looking radiant!”

Neil shrugged. “It’s a good day for a revolution.” Nicky merely laughed.

“Well, quit hogging the hallway. We’ve got work to do!”

Neil’s pistol tore itself out of his pocket at the doors behind them burst open: the inordinately loud scrape of the bunker’s metal doors nearly sent his heart into arrest, his gaze sturdy and at the ready.

“Woah, woah!” Nicky shoved Neil’s gun off-target. “It’s just Robin, Neil! One of the freshies.”

Neil knew Robin. She liked to stay in the shadows, just as he did, so they hadn’t truly interacted. Her lack of superiority and boisterousness put her apart from the other young rebels, at least in Neil’s eyes.

The noise had attracted the others: an odd dozen tumbled down the hallway to investigate the commotion, bleary-eyed with exhaustion and hunger and desperation.

Robin’s throat constricted as she opened her mouth to speak, nervously looking to each of the  _ róka.  _ At last, she said; “He’s here.”

“What?” Dan demanded.

“Riko,” Robin whispered. “He’s here. You sent me on a radius search and I came back as soon as I saw the militia.”

“He told us the 11th,” Neil insisted, looking to Dan. For once he wasn’t lying, but the truth hadn’t even helped.

“And he’s sticking to his word,” Robin agreed. “As soon as the clock strikes one past midnight, they will attack. He is alone,” she added, looking at Kevin. “The other Ravens are fortifying Evermore headquarters.”

Silence blanketed the small group.

Around them, sirens called.

“It was good knowing you all,” Nicky said, voice weak.

“Enough,” Wymack said, his scowl a permanent etching in the wisened grooves of his face. “We’ve come this far. We will prevail, and whether or not we succeed is irrelevant: we are the  _ róka.  _ This is our chance to make history.” His gaze rested on Neil. “We will fight, and we will not die quietly. Do you understand?”

Even Andrew was looking at him.

“I said: do you understand?”

A chorus of cheers echoed down the hallways. Dan’s grimace set itself into something determined, something prouder. With three bangs of her fist against the bunker walls, she crowed “Foxes!” and set off running, setting the pace.

Neil looked to Andrew, almost tempted to ask him to stay out of the fight.

“Don’t even think about it,” the man growled, taking Neil’s sleeve.

Together, they followed the others to retribution.

*

_ 11th of November, 1956 _

Neil thought he’d seen bloodshed. As far as cruelty went, this was on par with many horrific sights he’d seen over his far-too tumultuous life.

The ruthlessness of the Moriyama reclamation was almost enough to bring Neil to his knees. Instead it fuelled a stronger fire in his gut as he loaded and reloaded, again and again, fighting desperately to keep civilians and rebels alive and safe.

Tanks crushed any opposing onslaughts in their way. Planes soared through the skies. He would never forget the horrific details of the second world war, but the machinery of the militia they faced was even more complex and formidable than they had been before, just over a decade ago.

Neil swore as another projectile sliced by him, ducking into a gap between two buildings to catch his breath. He needed to find Andrew. He needed to know he was okay.

The rebels had been working their way towards Perimeter Avenue, where they were sure Riko would be. If nothing else succeeded, Neil wanted to put a bullet between his brows. For what he had done to Andrew, to Kevin, to his city. For what he’d done to himself.

“Andrew!” Neil called out, shielding his eyes from minor shrapnel that exploded from a shopfront as the tank took its aim. “Andrew, where are you?”

“Neil,” the man grunted, crouched by the mutilated remnants of an automobile. Neil crawled across the pavement, blotting out the panicked shrieks as the city was torn to pieces. Andrew’s hands, bloodied and shaking, grasped Neil’s jaw.

“You should go back to the bunker,” Neil whispered, voice nearly inaudible in the chaos. “You can’t be here. Not like this.”

“I’m not leaving you to fend for yourself,” he muttered, wiping the sheen of sweat away from his forehead. “You’ll be dead within the minute.”

Neil helped him up and together they worked their way closer to the city’s centre. The plan was to convene at the headquarters and infiltrate before sunrise, before the blanket of darkness that kept them concealed was torn away.

He couldn’t help but sense that he was being tailed. No matter how many times he checked over his shoulder, he couldn’t see anything suspicious. It was far too chaotic to tell, regardless. He kept close to Andrew’s side and let the man lean on him, though he didn't say anything to point it out.

“Almost there,” Neil promised.

“Shut up,” he huffed, ignoring the way their arms were hooked together to keep him upright. Neil, in spite of everything, had to fight a smile.

“Sure,” he teased softly. His stomach convulsed as he noticed movement in his peripheral vision and slammed the two of them against the nearest wall, out of sight. Andrew made a noise of discomfort, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Andrew,” came a familiar voice. “Andrew, why are you here? You should be resting.”

Renee’s soft voice and features of steel were still rather contradictory, but Neil felt himself breathing a little easier at the presence of someone he knew and trusted. “I tried to convince him. It didn’t work.”

Renee smiled fondly. “Of course not. Stitches holding up?”

Andrew nodded tightly.

“Neil’s rather talented,” she laughed, ignoring Andrew’s scathing look. “Have you seen anyone else?” They both shook their heads. “That’s alright, I suppose. We should continue on our way.”

Neil wished to never see the Evermore Headquarters ever again, but it was inevitable. They turned a corner an indeterminable time later to see it standing there in all its glory, a crowning jewel of Perimeter Avenue. Neil wanted it burned to the ground. According to the twitch in Andrew’s frown, he very much agreed.

“Jean is supposedly very injured,” Renee said, voice hushed. “We need to infiltrate and liberate him. Him and the prisoners: Thea too, if she is there.”

“Renee? Neil?” Kevin hissed, creeping over to duck into their shadowed alcove. Aaron was on his tail. “Thank goodness we’ve found you.”

“Everyone else is preoccupied or out of commission,” Aaron informed them. “We might be all there is.”

“Forget it,” Andrew insisted.

“I have to find them,” Kevin insisted. “I have to get them out of there. We had people on the outside, Andrew. It isn’t just to leave them stranded.”

Andrew just looked at Kevin like he’d grown a pair of horns. Perhaps it was him marvelling at Kevin’s spine. Whatever it was, it wasn’t rational.

“I’m going too,” Aaron insisted. “There will be people who need my help.”

“Aaron,” Andrew warned.

Neil took a step closer, inserting himself into Andrew’s peripheral. The man barely glanced in Neil’s direction, glaring daggers at his brother and his charge. The two in question seemed to have gotten themselves into their own conversation, Renee looking on serenely.

“Andrew, the Ravens need to collapse for Riko to be vulnerable,” Neil insisted. “We need to infiltrate. Tetsuji Moriyama is in there, too. He could be a bargaining chip.”

“We?” Andrew shook his head. “No. I can’t have everyone I — _ no _ .”

“Then let me watch your back,” Neil said, voice soft. He glanced at Renee: she nodded. “I trust Renee to keep you upright, if you need to watch over Aaron and Kevin and keep your promises. But let me watch your back.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Andrew snapped, drawing away enough to glare at him. “I don’t need protection.”

“Everyone does,” Neil counters. “Let me keep you safe, and you can watch over them. We both know I’m the sharpest shooter here. Let me have your back.”

Andrew’s eye twitched.

“Are the two of you quite finished?” Aaron demanded. “There are people dying.”

Neil ignored him. “Andrew,” he insisted.

“We’ll be over here,” Renee said, grabbing the other two by their coat sleeves. “I see Dan and Wymack. We’ll catch them up to speed.” Neil didn’t watch the three of them walk off, all his focus on Andrew.

The man’s fingers curled in Neil’s sleeve. “You’re walking on ice too thin, Neil.”

“You shouldn’t be going with them,” Neil argued. “Let me have this compromise.”

“You were never supposed to matter,” Andrew snarled, before pressing a fierce kiss to the corner of Neil’s mouth. When he rocked back, his eyes were squeezed shut. “Fine.  _ Fine.  _ Just know that I don’t need your protection.”

“But you have it anyway,” Neil brushed his thumb over Andrew’s cheekbone. “If you find Riko, slit his throat for me.”

“My hands are your hands,” Andrew agreed, tugging on Neil’s wrist.

“Be safe,” Neil said. “Come back.”

“I hate you,” Andrew retorted, pacing backwards away from Neil.

“Every inch of me,” Neil agreed. “I know.”

The small cluster of  _ róka _ all gathered in the shadows, nodded unanimously with Andrew’s direction, and set off to liberate Evermore headquarters. Neil checked his inventory and reloaded his guns, prowling around the shadows for the best vantage point. He’d studied Evermore headquarter’s blueprints not a few days ago, but there were still too many weak points for one man to cover. It was all he could do to not pace around and bring more attention to himself. Instead he spun his pistol around his finger, gazing between entrances and exits.

He should’ve just gone with them. Who knows how many people were stuck down there. Who knows how many guards they would have to incapacitate. Neil should’ve stayed by Andrew’s side.

“Well, well. Isn’t this just sweet.”

Neil spun around. Behind him, in the small alleyway perpendicular to Evermore headquarter’s front gates, was Riko Moriyama.

"I hoped you were dead," Neil murmured, hand to his holster.

He was alone. A manic grin was spread across his face, his tattoo wrinkled. Blood dripped from his nose. Neil’s hand shook, bringing up the gun.

“Ah ah,” Riko crooned. “I wouldn’t do that, if I were you.”

“Give me one good fucking reason,” Neil snarled.

Riko’s smile spread a little wider as he unclipped a small box from his shoulder. He held it up for Neil to see. “You see this little box, Nathaniel? I have a man hidden in the walls. In his hand he holds a detonator. Every facet of the building behind you will crumble and crush your dainty little friends will never arise from the rubble.”

“You’re lying,” Neil croaked, horror constricting his chest to that of a painful degree. Andrew was in there. Dan was in there. Kevin, Wymack, Aaron, Renee — they’d be dead in seconds. “You’re fucking bluffing.”

Riko leaned into the little box and pressed a button. “Leverett, check.”

“Ready,” came a voice, rather garbled by the machine’s poor quality. “Detonation a go, sir?”

“No,” Neil breathed. The gun wilted. “Don’t.”

Riko lowered the little radio box. “Good boy, Nathaniel.”

“Don’t hurt them,” Neil whispered. “Don’t kill them. Kevin is in there. All your Ravens are in there.”

“I should have killed Kevin when I had the chance,” Riko snarled. “The others are all expendable.”

“What do you want?” Neil pleaded. “What the hell do you fucking want, you monster?”

Riko sauntered forward and placed a finger under Neil’s chin. “Subordination, Nathaniel. I’m going to claim this city, and I am going to rule it. Our fathers are dead, and thus, you now belong to me. Play nice and I won’t obliterate your puny little rebellion into pieces.”

“You won’t hurt them if I agree,” Neil demanded. “You  _ swear  _ you won’t hurt them.”

Riko laughed. “You’re in no place to bargain with me, Wesninski.” Neil winced. “I will do as I please. But yes, if you kneel for me, then I will have Leverett cut the fuse and dismantle the explosives. Your friends will be safe from that threat. Whether or not they’ll survive the reclamation,” Riko grinned. “Is something I cannot possibly foresee.”

With a ragged snarl, Neil leapt for the communication device. Riko backhanded Neil across the cheek, sending him careening into the wall of the alleyway.

“This is hardly the complacency I had in mind, Nathaniel.”

“Fuck you,” Neil snarled. Faster than Riko could anticipate, he drew out his gun and fired two shots: one hit Riko’s shoulder. Another buried itself in the sodden brick. The man let out a horrific yell, stumbling back.

Neil couldn’t let up. He couldn’t let this twisted man betray his promise to Andrew.  _ My hands are your hands,  _ he thought, spinning his barrel and aiming twice. One buried itself in Riko’s stomach, the other in his leg. With a scream, Riko fell to the ground, twitching.

“I hope you like losing, you second-rate asshole,” Neil panted.

Riko’s body stopped writhing, but he was still smiling.

Hesitantly, Neil approached.

Blood frothed out of the man’s mouth as his grin split wider. One eye cracked open. He uncurled his shaking fist to reveal the little machine, its intercom blinking green.

“Leverett,” he wheezed. “Do it.”

_ No!  _ Neil was sure he yelled, but it was lost under the deafening noise: glass shattered, foundations crumbled, the ground beneath Neil’s feet shaking enough that Neil fell to his knees. Smoke and flame billowed from the crumbling wreckage as it plummeted towards the ground.

Shrapnel tore itself into Neil’s skin as he watched in horror. There was nothing but a burning carcass, the wrought iron fencing curling with the force of it all. Evermore Headquarters went up in flames.

_ Fuck,  _ Neil thought, his body convulsing.  _ Dan. Wymack… Renee. Kevin. Aaron. Jean, Jeremy, Thea.  _ He dry heaved onto the pavement in front of him, eyes stinging.  _ Oh, fuck. Matt. Matt and Abby and Allison and Nicky and Katelyn. Pregnant Katelyn. Oh, god. _

“Andrew,” he whispered, fingers digging into the dirt. Scraping away, like he could dig his way through the ground and pull Andrew’s body free of the wreckage. Like the heat of the explosion wasn’t already singeing his bloody clothes. “ _ Andrew.” _

It was hours, perhaps, before Neil dared to open his eyes. When he looked up, there was a shadow obstructing his view of what used to be the headquarters. It was an automobile. A black car, sitting at the mouth of the alley. Neil hadn’t noticed it pull in: hadn’t even heard the engine.

He squinted as a man, military garb evenly pressed, wound down the window.

“Get in, Nathanael.”

Neil abandoned Riko’s body in favour of clambering to his feet. He refused to look at the disaster behind the car, instead attempting to define the man sitting in the back of the vehicle.

The metal of the handle was cool to Neil’s palm. The door swung open, the car’s plush interior swallowing him as soon as he clambered inside.

The windows were obstructed with curtains. Neil couldn’t bear to see  _ that _ again anyway, and kept his eyes perfectly concentrated on the new figure that he sat beside.

His uniform was gaudy and exuberant. It was fitted, black and embroidered with symbols of honour and legacy. The Moriyama emblem was sewn into the breastplate. The slanted gaze and ink-black hair looked too similar to Riko’s for it to be anyone but his brother.

Neil’s mouth went dry. He was sat before Ichirou Moriyama.

“Nathanael,” he said. “This meeting is overdue.”

“I was supposed to belong to Riko,” Neil recalled. “My lineage was too sullied. Your father didn’t want me.”

“You weren’t supposed to survive.” Ichirou said, voice even as he looked out the automobile’s front glass. “And yet, here you are.”

“He’s dead,” Neil breathed. “Riko is dead.”

“And that is the only reason you’re still alive,” Ichirou agreed. “My brother was a meddling child. Insane at best, and irreparably monstrous at worst. This city is ravaged, and it is all at his bequest.”

Neil simply held his breath.

“There is much work for me to do, here,” Ichirou murmured. “You have put up a good fight, but it ends here. Do you understand?”

Neil’s fingers curled tight in his sleeves. “Sir — Lord Moriyama — ”

“I am not my brother,” Ichirou reassured him. “I want to rebuild Palmetto to its former glory. I have no need to patrol it with an iron-fist. I want all my nations to prosper. I assure you that your city is safe in my hands.” He tilted himself towards where Neil was sat, pressed against the door so hard he was sure it would swing open. “But first, you must leave.”

“Leave,” Neil echoed.

Ichirou glanced towards the covered window, of which shielded the wreckage of Evermore headquarters from view. “Your friends are all dead, yes?”

Neil’s body trembled. “I — not all of them — ”

“But they will not speak to you,” he said. “Not when they discover who let off the detonator.”

Neil curled in on himself. “I didn’t — ”

“Leave the city,” Ichirou repeated. “I will have my guard drive you to the nearest functioning station. Leave the country of Columbia and never return. Do this, and I will have no reason to get rid of you. Refuse and I will fire a bullet between your ears. Make your choice wisely, Nathanael.”

Everyone Neil ever loved or cared for was dead or would soon wish  _ he _ was dead.

He looked up from his clenched fists, drew in a quivering breath, and said:

“ _ Fine.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry?


	13. Epilogue

_ 16th of March, 1957 _

“Josten,” Hernandez called out, his accent turning English into a drawl. “You should head home.”

Neil sat up and winced as his back immediately twinged, angry at being bent over for so long. He had been sealing telegraphs for hours now, if the clock told him anything of value.

“Good gracious, boy,” his supervisor laughed. “I’ve never seen someone lose themselves so thoroughly in comms work before.”

Neil shrugged. “It’s methodical and soothing.”

Hernandez merely shook his head. “Go home, Josten.”

Neil sighed and stood up from his desk, slipping his pen back into his satchel. He didn’t have much: a flat cap that he hid his curls under, a paper bag from lunch, a scarf that he didn’t really need this late into Spring. His shift log would go back in Hernandez’ little filing cabinet: he would exchange that paper at the end of the month for his pay, which was a rather substantial amount for someone as frugal as he was.

It wasn’t hard to live and work in Porthcurno. The English country town was quiet enough that Neil almost felt out of place, but the work was consuming enough that he kept his feet grounded. He didn’t anticipate being able to stay for long, but the job would be good for travelling: he could work at different telegraph stations all across the world.

The station itself was filled with all sorts of people. Neil portrayed himself as a German immigrant who’d left prior to the persecutions. Hernandez was from Portugal. There was more than one war veteran, clinging onto some semblance of how it used to be. Neil didn’t have to speak to many of them, keeping to himself as he logged impulse transmissions and codes.

It was mathematical but slightly mind-numbing. Neil thought he would miss working in a medicinal ward more than he did: he suspected he would grow homesick if he had to work alongside different people.

He tried not to think about it. It often hurt him too much to contemplate, whether that be verbally or mentally.

Just as he slung his bag over his shoulder, his machine began to beep rapidly. He let out an aggravated huff: sometimes fools often sent messages to the station without filing the intended address first.

He threw his bag down and pressed the receiver to his ear, readying the return message:  _ M-E-S-S-A-G-E---F-A-I-L-E-D---P-L-E-A-S-E---I-N-P-U-T---A-D-D-R-E-S-S. _

He scrawled out the morse for the hell of it, seeing as the same person would most likely send back the exact same message with the proper address. Hernandez was right: it was time for Neil to head home.

When he scrawled it out on his notepad, he froze.

_ I---H-A-T-E---Y-O-U. _

Neil’s heart fluttered, breath going all quick. Before rationality set in, he sent back:

_ E-V-E-R-Y---I-N-C-H---O-F---M-E. _

The machine remained silent for a minute, then for two. When the clock ticked over the five-minute mark, Neil let out a frustrated sigh and rubbed at his face. He grabbed his satchel and switched off his machine. He was truly losing it.

The walk home was significantly less pleasant than usual. Not even the coastal Cornish sunset could soothe Neil’s frightfully treacherous mindscape.

When he readied for bed that night he forced himself not to dwell on the strange message any further with a nightcap (or two), burying himself into his covers and forcing his thoughts to wander elsewhere.

As usual, it didn’t truly work.

*

_ 21st of March, 1957 _

Neil stared at the message, unsure whether or not to be intrigued or terrified. The chances of someone having found him were hopefully minimal, but it was far more likely that whoever it was intended Neil harm than good.

And yet.

_ P-I-P-E-D-R-E-A-M. _

That’s what the letter said. That’s all it said. And it was addressed here, to Porthcurno telegraph station.

Neil’s eyes stung as his fingers shook violently, jamming the receiver back down.

“Hernandez,” he croaked. “I’m going home.”

The man simply waved as Neil dashed out of the comms room, secretly thankful that he wouldn’t have to pay the young man’s overtime for once.

*

_ 30th of March, 1957 _

“You’re getting quite a few of those false-messages,” Hernandez said wryly. “Almost like someone’s sending them on purpose to you.”

Neil’s spine stiffened slightly, raising his chin to acknowledge his superior’s presence. A new untagged signal had just been sent in for him but he hadn’t decoded it yet.

“Got a missus at home, boy?” Hernandez teased. “You shouldn’t be givin’ out your machine number, even if you wanna talk to her real bad.”

“No, sir,” Neil murmured. “No missus.”

“Shame,” his supervisor said, clapping Neil’s shoulder as he stood to leave. “Well, don’t fret about it, son. You’ll find someone soon enough.”

As soon as he stood to leave, Neil scrambled for the receiver and jammed it to his ear. With a trembling gasp he scrawled down the message.

_ Y-E-S---O-R---N-O. _

His hand hesitated before he could answer. He didn’t know what he was consenting to. If it was who he thought it was, then he was sure as hell that it didn’t matter. Hope blossomed in his chest, the vines and petals curling around his wrist and fingers as he tapped out his response.

_ Y-E-S. _

It was another ten minutes till there was a response. Neil agonised over the decoding, listening to the impulse repeatedly, just to be sure.

When he realised what it was, he nearly let out a broken gasp. It was a place. And a time.

A  _ meeting. _

*

_ 31st of March, 1957 _

Neil paced up and down the pavement, hands shoved into his pockets. He had almost turned around to journey back home repeatedly, his nervousness getting the better of him.

He was going to be late.

Whoever had coordinated this with him would already be standing there, right outside Truro cathedral, waiting for him. Neil quashed any feelings of hope, insisting that someone could have overheard  _ him  _ saying those things to Neil. They were just creative in luring Neil out into the open. They wasted time and money on telegraphs and somehow gleaned  _ his _ exact vocabulary, the exact phrases he had told Neil…

Neil had a gun in his pocket. It was rather frowned upon, but entirely necessary for Neil’s peace of mind. His fingers brushed over the trigger, letting a sense of purpose wash over him.

He marched on.

The courtyard before Truro cathedral was quiet at this time of night. There were no pubs near the church, so as to not be blasphemous, and thus there was truly no one around to observe Neil be brutally murdered by an imposter. Neil took off his flat cap and held it to his chest, looking around. The square was eerily empty: he didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all.

To his left, from behind one of the cathedral’s pillars, something shifted.

Neil took a step back, hand over the gun where it was safe in the lining of his trousers. The figure wore only dark clothes, features completely indistinguishable in the dark. Only when he stepped out of the shadows and pulled off his hat did Neil let out a small sound of anguish.

_ “Andrew,”  _ he whispered, surging forward.

Andrew’s hands, broad and calloused and sturdy, grasped Neil’s face between his palms. Moonlight curved over his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. A mangled cry found its way between his lips as his hands found the pockets of Andrew’s trench-coat. The same old trench-coat. The same old Andrew. Their foreheads pressed together, noses brushing.

“I thought you died,” Neil breathed. “In the explosion. You and everyone else.”

“You stalled long enough for us to escape first,” Andrew returned. “They told me you were dead. That Riko killed you. They never showed a body. I refused to make the same mistake twice.”

Neil’s laugh escaped him, high and bright and a little bit crazed. He pulled Andrew closer. “You’re  _ alive.” _

“And you were hellish to find,” Andrew groused, hand slipping around to the back of Neil’s neck, skin on skin. “Yes or no?”

“I can’t believe you sent me morse,” Neil mumbled, their lips brushing. “I can’t believe you thought sending ‘I hate you’ would work.”

“It did work, didn’t it?” Andrew said.

“Kiss me,” Neil demanded.

Andrew, of course, readily complied.

Warmth seeped into Neil’s skin and familiarity swathed him, sturdy and strong and effusive.

It was like he’d never felt the cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I WOULDVE TAGGED IT AS MAJ CHARACTER DEATH IF THEY ACTUALLY FINNA DIE, HENS, YALL STRESSED OUT SO MUCH!! <<<333 i love yall anyway tho
> 
> we finally be at the end. i hope yall enjoyed reading it as much as i enjoyed writin it. i cannot stress enough how grateful i am for @wishbonetea and their betaing, and of course, credit goes where credit is due to @requiemofkings and their fantastic art. 
> 
> see yall in the next one?? hopefully!!!

**Author's Note:**

> posting this felt like sending my child to their first day of school.


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